THE ROMANS IN CORNWALL. 369 



one direction ; and right away over Hameldon to the verge of 

 the cultivated land, heading for Exeter through Chudleigh in 

 the other. Along this deserted trackway there is therefore now 

 no doubt that the bulk of the traiRc to and from Cornwall 

 passed. I have called it a "trackway" in the modern phrase, 

 but it is a genuine "street" in the older sense, a causeway 

 formed of stones, some 10 feet in width, the layer being 2^ feet 

 in depth — a work therefore of no little magnitude but one with 

 which there is not the smallest reason for suggesting the Romans 

 had anything to do. Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity. 

 History has nothing to say to it. And there it remains, a 

 monument of the ability of the Kelts to make a great road even 

 over such a waste as Dartmoor, 



Touching the suggestion that some of the hoards of Roman 

 coins found in Cornwall may be the remains of military chests, 

 I will only point out that it is after all only a suggestion ; and 

 that, whether it be bad or good, we are not entitled on the one 

 hand to say it was not so, nor on the other hand, as some of my 

 friends seem disposed to do, to treat it as an established fact. 

 How do the contents of a Roman military chest differ from the 

 capital stock of a trading settlement, when either consists only 

 of coins ? 



Perhaps we shall never know to what extent Cornwall was 

 ethnically Romanized. It is certain that we shall not unless we 

 make our ground somewhat clearer than it seems to be at present. 



