232 THE ISLE OF RUIM. 



known afterwards as the Eutnpine Port, and later still as 

 Sandwich Haven. To that port came Gaulish and 

 Phccnician vessels, or possibly even at times some belated 

 Phocaean galley from Massilia. But the trade in tin was 

 one of immense antiquity, long antedating these almost 

 modern commercial nations : for tin is a necessary com- 

 ponent of bronze, and the bronze age of Europe was 

 entirely dependent for its supply of that all-important 

 metal upon the Cornish mines. From a very early date, 

 therefore, we may be sure that ingots of tin were 

 exported by this route to the continent, and then trans- 

 ported overland by the Khone valley to the shores of the 

 Mediterranean. 



The tin road, to give it its more proper name, followed 

 the crest of the Hog's Back and the Guildford downs, 

 crossing the various rivers at spots whose very names 

 still attest the ancient passages — the Wey at Shalford, 

 the Mole at Burford, the Medway at Aylesford, and the 

 Wantsum Strait at Wade, in which last I seem to hear 

 the dim echo to this day of the Eoman Vada. Euim 

 itself, as less liable to attack than an inland place, formed 

 the depot for the tin trade, and the ingots were no doubt 

 shipped near the site of Eichborough. We may regard 

 it, in fact, as a sort of prehistoric Hong-Kong or Zanzi- 

 bar, a trading island, where merchants might traffic at 

 ease with the shy and suspicious islanders. 



Euim at that time must have consisted almost entirely 

 of open down, sloping upward from the tidal Wantsum, 

 and extending a little farther out to sea than at the 

 present moment. Pegwell Bay was then a wide sea- 

 mouth ; Sandwich flats did not yet exist ; and the Stour 



