14S Hadrian's Wall. [Sess. 



Something she said offended Arthur, "who picked up a stone 

 and threw it at her. The Queen dexterously caught the 

 stone upon her comb, and, to prove the truth of the story, 

 there in the hollow between the hills lies the stone to this 

 day with the marks of the teeth of the comb upon it. The 

 stone weighs twenty tons. 



At Cawfield the wall is at one of its highest points above 

 sea-level, about 1200 feet. The long basaltic ridge, upon the 

 crest of which it runs for a large part of its course, is broken 

 at frequent intervals by defiles passing through from north to 

 south. These defiles are locally and expressively known as 

 Gaps. Across the smaller gaps the Roman Wall went straight 

 down one side and up the other. In descending such a gap 

 it is somewhat peculiar in that the courses of the masonry do 

 not follow the line of the ground, but pass horizontally out- 

 wards, as if the wall was meant to fill up the entire depth of 

 the hollow, and it is just possible that it did. Just west from 

 here there is a strip of country known as the ' Nine Nicks of 

 Thirlwall/ and in that distance, in following the wall, one 

 must plunge down into the hollows and up again to the 

 heights nine times. Rather arduous work on a hot day, but 

 most enjoyable, especially on the heights with the long view 

 over the moorland to the Cheviots and Scotland, and the cool 

 north-west wind singing among the grass and heather. Pres- 

 ently we come across another defensive element of the wall, 

 still smaller than the mile-castle, and known as a wall 

 turret. It had no opening to the north. There were usually 

 three or four of them between each pair of mile-castles, and 

 they were probably posts for still smaller parties of men. 

 Muckle Bank wall turret is placed just on the edge of a 

 descent into one of the larger gaps, and, as it is broad and 

 the ground very low in the centre, the wall does not go straight 

 across it, but turns in at right angles on each side to cross 

 farther into the gap. Thus an enemy, in attacking, would be 

 exposed not only to the fire of the defenders in front but also 

 from the wall on either side. The wall follows the ridge away 

 to the eastward here, and exhibits the strongly defensive line 

 it takes in this, the central part of its course. 



Now let us leave the line of the wall which, as it approaches 

 Carlisle and the Solway, becomes almost entirely obliterated 



