CHAP. XL] COMMERCIAL RELATIONS OF BRITAIN. 421 



between the island of Eugen and the Vistula, 1 prove 

 that its traces remained as late as the first century after 

 Christ. It disappeared from Britain more than a 

 hundred and fifty years before Christ, and from France 

 probably long before. 



Commercial Relations of Britain in the Bronze Age. 



The next question to be considered is the position of 

 the British Isles in the Bronze age, as related to the 

 Continental nations. Were they visited by the Mediter- 

 ranean traders, or were they cut off from all contact 

 with the Mediterranean civilisation \ It may be answered 

 that there is no proof of any direct intercourse with any 

 southern people. The Cornish tin, and the Irish and 

 Welsh gold, tempted daring Phoenician and Greek ad- 

 venturers probably after the Bronze age had passed 

 away, and within a few centuries before Christ. It is 

 likely, however, that both were worked by the natives 

 in the Bronze age, and that both found their way 

 through Gaul to the Mediterranean. The glass beads 

 discovered in the tombs of the Bronze age in these islands 

 have, like those of France and Germany, been derived from 

 the south, and many of the higher forms of bronze imple- 

 ments, such as the bronze sword (Fig. 131, p. 364), are to 

 be looked upon as foreign. Both were probably passed 

 from hand to hand, and from tribe to tribe, till ultimately 

 they arrived in the islands of the great western ocean. 

 Comparatively free communication might be carried on 

 with the Continent by means of galleys, similar to those 



1 Gcrmania, cxliii. Rugii atque Lemovii ; omniumque harum gentium 

 insigne, rotunda scuta, breves gladii atque erga reges obsequium. 



