CHAPTER 11 
THE ISLE OF HONEY 
F we are to accept all that the old Roman 
historians have put on record to the glory of 
their race, we must believe that their con- 
quering legions found everywhere barbarism, and 
left in its place the seeds of a high civilisation— 
high, at least, in the general acceptance of the word 
in those lurid, moving days. 
But it may well be questioned whether the 
Britain that Ceesar first knew was as barbaric as 
it has been painted. We are accustomed to look 
upon Czsar’s account of his earliest view of Albion 
—of Eilanban, the White Island, as the Britons 
themselves called it—as the first glance vouch- 
safed to us into the history of our own land. But 
this is very’ far from being the truth. British 
history begins with the record of the first voyage 
of the Phcenicians, who, adventuring farther than 
any other of their intrepid race, chanced upon the 
Scilly Isles and the neighbouring coast of Corn- 
wall, and thence brought back their first cargo 
of tin. 
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