20 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



into the equally savage minds of their island 

 adversaries. We get a glimpse of a people much 

 farther advanced in the arts of peace and war. In 

 all probability they clothed themselves at ordinary 

 times, picturesquely enough, in the furs of the 

 wild animals, with which the island abounded ; and 

 it was only in war-time that they stripped and 

 painted. Old prints have familiarised us with the 

 sight of the sailors of Drake and Nelson stripped 

 much in the same way; and the blue paint of 

 Druidical times is not divided by so great a gulf 

 as the ages warrant from the scarlet cloth and 

 glittering brass-ware of nineteenth-century fight- 

 ing-men. As armourers the ancient Britons must 

 have been not immeasurably inferior to the 

 Romans, and we are told that they excelled in at 

 least one difficult craft, the making of all sorts of 

 basket-ware. 



But there is other testimony, apart from Caesar's, 

 in favour of the view that they were by no means 

 a barbarous people. Diodorus Siculus, who was 

 Caesar's contemporary, speaks of them as posses- 

 sing an integrity of character even superior to 

 that commonly obtaining among the Romans ; and 

 Tacitus, writing about a century later, ascribes to 

 them great alertness of apprehension, as well as 

 high mental capacity. Protected as they were by 

 the sea, it is probable that war entered to no large 

 extent into their lives, and they were essentially 

 a pastoral people. The cultured and daring 



