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PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1919 
the very things ! How did you know ? ” The tranquil 
response now came : “ As I was myself travelling, afar off, 
to this same town, out westward I noticed tracks of three 
camels, one of which by its irregularities discovered that the 
beast was lame in the hind quarters : here and there I saw 
several clusters of bees very busy, and I knew that meant honey. 
Farther along, I picked up dates that were good, and I ate them 
with my friend : and lastly, at another spot we saw that all 
three beasts must have scattered in a panic, perhaps attacked 
by a wild beast — for the tracks ran off in different directions — 
and a lot of flour lay whitely about the spot ! I never saw any 
of the beasts.” 
Now, the scientific may chaff the history-writers and the 
archeologues on the score of a certain inexactness in their 
evidences as compared with those demanded by the chemist, the 
geometrician and the mathematician ; but be it recollected that 
often this story illustrates the only kind of evidence that has 
survived for us to handle ; and if we do sometimes draw 
incorrect deductions, at any rate these can be set right at 
far less cost than can the miscalculations of the surgeon or of 
the engineer ! 
Let us turn to the application of the image with which we 
started, the tracks and footsteps of the passers-by on the 
highway and the history of towns, and especially of this 
beautiful and very ancient one, of Cirencester. 
The first evidences that claim our attention concern the 
Pre-Roman and the Roman possession of this early centre with 
its neighbourhood beside the Churn river. 
Historic information up to date seems to assure us that two 
successive Celtic tribes from Belgium and Gaul may have 
established their important cantonal town here about 200 B.C., 
and the earlier of the two displaced by conquest unknown 
people of the round-barrow-period. The earlier of these 
probably were the Cornavii, while the later called themselves 
the Dohuni. At the time of or somewhat before the Roman 
invasion Gaulish tribes occupied and ruled territory at least 
as far as the Severn westward, and above the Humber in the 
North, and in doing so had, of course, dispossessed and 
perhaps partly enslaved the people whom they overcame. 
