VOL. XX. (2) 
ANCIENT CIRENCESTER 
85 
ANCIENT CIRENCESTER. 
BY 
W. ST. CLAIR BABDELEY, President. 
I. Romaxo-British. 
As one walks along the highway, if one notices the various 
traces made by passing animals, by vehicles and by people, 
how they cross and re-cross and give way to one another, 
one feels that even there is written a bit of history, could we 
but read it clearly. There are the horse-shoe tracks, foot-prints 
of oxen or cows, of dogs and those of their potent commander, 
their feudal lord — even man ! 
Will you be surprised if I venture to assert here that, to 
the student of town history, the various buildings, thorough- 
fares, pavements, curious names, make a very similar impression, 
offering to him the over-lapping evidences of the past story, 
from which he is bound to draw the conclusions at which he 
arrives. 
I shall return to these tracks of the “ passers-by ” presently ; 
but let me meanwhile make my meaning fuller by an ancient 
story from the Persian. 
This is a well-known story, in which a well-to-do Persian 
merchant traveller complains in a hostel that, as he came 
towards the town, he had lost three valuable laden camels 
that got astray from the caravan a few nights before his 
arrival. 
Thereupon a listener asks if one of the beasts was a lame one 
— lame of the left hind-leg ? “ Why, yes ! ” came the emphatic 
reply. “ You then have seen it ? ” “ Oh no ! I did not,” 
answered the questioner. “ Moreover, did it carry honey in 
its load ? ” “ Why, yes,” retorted the owner, — “ there ; 
you must have seen it ! ” “ No, I did not, indeed ; but you 
may also say whether the other two camels carried flour and 
dates ? ” The astonished owner immediately replied, “ Why 
