some of our Ancient British Encampments. 179 



requirements of even a moderate-sized camp. The " fatigue parties " 

 (to employ a modern phrase) , to be told off for this purpose, would have 

 taken nearly the whole strength of the encamping force, and would 

 have had, even in barbarous times, to have been guarded by a strong 

 " escort 33 in a hostile country. 



We submit the foregoing remarks, however, with a certain degree 

 of reserve, seeing that the use of the pits in question has been, by a 

 Sussex antiquary, otherwise explained, viz., for religious purposes; 

 and should this hypothesis be capable of undoubted proof, the camp- 

 theory could not be maintained, or with it the necessary water-supply. 

 There is doubtless some ground for this supposition, inasmuch as 

 the worship of certain deities was undoubtedly conducted on the tops 

 of hills. Still, we think there can be no doubt, notwithstanding 

 this belief in their use on the part of some, that the garrison of 

 these works, assuming them as encampments, depended entirely for 

 water on the circular pits alluded to, and employed them in the same 

 manner as the " sheep ponds/' which exist on the Yorkshire Wolds, 

 the Wiltshire and Sussex Downs, and other high land. There are, 

 in fact, at the present time two such sheep ponds at the base of 

 Mount Caburn and Cissbury Hill. It is also not impossible that 

 parts of the actual fosse might have been utilised for this purpose, 

 of which there are indications in all these earthworks, and the humid 

 climate of Britain would undoubtedly have enabled the occupants 

 of these early camps to organise a water-supply by the aid of such 

 reservoirs. The art of " puddling, 1 ' as it is called, to prevent filtra- 

 tion in soils unadapted for holding water, seems so simple, that from 

 primitive to modern times no difference can have been required in 

 the operation of rendering water-tight the bottoms of such reservoirs 

 by that process. 



These pits, in the same way as the sheep or wold-ponds in ques- 

 tion, would have been kept full, partly by the rain that fell, partly 

 by the aqueous vapours of our humid atmosphere, and the dews or 

 water thus deposited, to which in a similar way the fogs and mists, 

 which hang about the tops of high ground, would equally contribute. 

 In fact, such reservoirs on the Sussex Downs have been long known 

 as " dew ponds/' a denomination which quite accords with a belief in 



