6 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



the depths of the woods after delivering an un- 

 successful attack, and in hampering his line of 

 march by blocking the rough tracks with felled 

 trees. The villages, or * towns ' as both Caesar 

 and Strabo called them, were merely clusters of 

 houses grouped together for mutual assistance 

 and defence within large clearances made in the 

 forest. They were protected by ramp and ditch, 

 as well as by a stout fence formed by inter- 

 weaving branches of thorny trees and shrubs and 

 strengthened with stakes. 



It is curious and interesting to note conditions 

 as to tactics and village defence obtaining through- 

 out Upper Burma quite recently almost exactly 

 similar to those which prevailed in Britain about 

 nineteen centuries ago. 



At that time the British woods consisted of 

 Beech, Oak, Scots Pine, Birch, Ash, Scots Elm, 

 Mountain Ash, Sallow, Aspen, Alder, and Yew, 

 together with smaller trees and shrubs like Haw- 

 thorn, Juniper, Holly, and Gorse. To the Romans 

 we owe the English Elm, Lime, Chestnut, Plane, 

 Poplar, Walnut, and many other trees of the 

 garden and the orchard, which have never become 

 thoroughly naturalised throughout the woodlands. 



