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territories, which it is the fashion of Mr. Wright and other 
antiquaries of the present day to ignore and often to deny, 
but which have certainly been found in numerous places 
along our coasts, though but rarely inland. 
Yseur, however, possessed yet earlier mementoes of her 
connection with archaic races in the "Devil's Arrows" (Duil 
Am), without doubt one of the finest monuments of primaeval 
North Britain, though by what race up-reared, whether 
Brahminial or purely Scandinavian, remains to be determined. 
Between these four (now reduced to three) maenhirs or pillar- 
stones, the Betoel of the Phoenicians, and probably the very 
earliest memorials in our land, and Yseur an Idol of stone 
was found at a great depth underground. It is of sufficiently 
rude execution to compare with any South Sea Island deity ; 
but the material is remarkable, being of the same coarse grit 
as the neighbouring "Arrows" — a stone not naturally pro- 
curable nearer than Plumpton, a distance of ten miles ! 
The conquest of the district by the Romans in the latter 
part of the first century, after it had remained for some 
time in a tributary condition under native chieftainship, 
brought a marked change upon the scene. Yseur, a well- 
situated and strongly fortified place was at once utilized, and 
under the distinctive title of Isui'ium-Brigantum (Yseur of 
the Brigantes) it became not merely the head-quarters but 
the actual capital of the victorious invaders, until, after the 
pacification of the country the growing necessities of the 
capital of so important a province as Britain induced removal 
to a site more accessible to navigation as the chief means of 
• supply of grain, &c, not alone for the army but at times for 
the Imperial court itself. This was found lower down the 
river, at the junction of the Ouse and Foss ; and here up- 
rose the future metropolis, firstly of the Romans in North 
Britain, secondly of the Saxon kingdom of Northumberland 
or Deira, and, lastly, of the great ecclesiastical district, still 
