46 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



to Apollo. Those straight white lines and green- 

 grown ridges on the flanks of Banagh Down and the 

 eastern heights are the vestiges of the old Roman 

 causeways — the Fosse and its branches— now totally 

 disused or else degraded into modern cait-roads ; and 

 the Institution Buildings in the valley below cover or 

 contain all the remaining memorials of the stately 

 Roman town. . 'Back of me again, on H&npton Down, 

 stand the earthworks of Caer Badon, the later British 

 village, planted there when fear of the heathen West 

 Saxon invaders had driven back the Christian Welsh- 

 man to the hills which he had deserted for the fruitful 

 valley during the security of the Pax Romana ; and 

 this long mound, on whose sumrnit I am standing to 

 catch the view, actually forms part of Wansdyke, the 

 great boundary barrier behind which "the Welshmen 

 of the Somersetshire principality entrenched them- 

 selves, after the pagan English pirates had taken pos- 

 session of th^ Avon dale and of Bath itself The 

 decisive battle which settled the fate of the city was 

 fought at Dyrham Park, among those blue downs on 

 the porthern horizon ; and the tiny village of English- 

 combe, nestling bdbw the solitar>' beacon of High 

 Barrow Hill on my left, marks in its very name the 

 furthest westward extension of the Teutonic settlers 

 towards the ever-unG6'fi(;iuered recesses of Mendip. 



