220 THE DOVER ROAD 



irresistible. But Caesar was a cautious general, 

 and rarely moved without having reconnoitred, and 

 so he sent over a certain Volusenus to spy out that 

 wonderful land whence came tin and skins, oysters, 

 pearls, hunting dogs, gold, slaves, and terrible warriors. 

 Volusenus sailed across the straits, and returned with 

 quite as much information as could have been expected 

 from one who had never left his ship. That sarcasm 

 is Caesar's own, and no doubt he was in a peculiarly 

 savage and sarcastic humour at the time, for although 

 this Britain was so frequented by merchants, yet he 

 could not find any one who would acknowledge having 

 been there ; and so his information as to the population, 

 the shores and harbours of the country, remained 

 vague and uncertain. And to add to the disappoint- 

 ments he had experienced from those crafty traders 

 who wished to keep all knowledge of the island to 

 themselves, this over-cautious Volusenus returned 

 after four days with just such a hazy and indefinite 

 story as he had been told before ; the hearsay evidence 

 of one who was too timorous to land ! 



But Caesar's desire to see Britain was only whetted 

 by the deceits which those artful traders had practised 

 upon him, and by the vague reports of his envoy. 

 He lay at Portus Itius, identified either as Boulogne 

 or some place in the immediate vicinity, and, collecting 

 a flotilla of over eighty vessels, with an additional 

 eighteen for his cavalry, he sailed from under the shelter 

 of Grey Nose Point at midnight, August 24, B.C. 55. 

 The following morning about six o'clock, this armada 

 arrived under Dover cliffs. The cavalry, however, 

 which had sailed from a different harbour, had been 

 driven back by adverse winds, and did not arrive until 

 four days later. His force, then, consisted of two 

 legions of foot soldiers, equal to about 10,000 men. 

 No sooner had the transports anchored in Dover 

 harbour than the cliff -tops became alive with Britons, 

 armed, and determined to resist a landing. Seeing this, 

 Caesar decided to select some less dangerous landing- 



