The new people were good farmers; they exported grain, cattle, and hides to Gaul (France), and mined and sold tin ore to merchants who came by sea from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
This strong and energetic race, known as Celts, eventually called themselves Britons. By the time they had adopted that name they had made a great step forward, for they had learned how to mine and manufacture iron,—the most useful metal known to man; from it they forged scythes, swords, and spears.
Such were the people Caesar met when he invaded Britain, fifty-five years before the beginning of the Christian era. The great Roman general called the Britons "barbarians"; but they compelled him to respect them, for they were a race of hard fighters, who fearlessly faced even his veteran troops.
3. The Religion of the Britons; the Druids.
The Britons held some dim faith in an overruling Power and in a life beyond the grave. They offered human sacrifices to that Power, and when they buried one of their warriors, they buried his spear with him so that he might fight as good a battle in the next world as he had fought in this one.
Furthermore, the Britons had a class of priests called Druids, who seem to have worshiped the heavenly bodies. These priests also acted as prophets, judges, and teachers. Caesar tells us that the Druids instructed the youth about the stars and their motions, about the magnitude of the earth, the nature of things, and "the might and power of the immortal gods."
More than this, the Druids probably erected the massive stone columns of that strange stucture, open to the sky, whose ruins may still be seen on the lonely expanse of Salisbury Plain. There, on one of the fallen blocks, Carlyle and Emerson sat, when they made their pilgrimage to Stonehenge[1] many years ago, and discussed the life after death, with other questions of Druid philosophy.
[1] Stonehenge: This remarkable structure is believed to be the remains of a pre-historic monument to the dead, which was, perhaps, used also as a place of worship. It stands on Salisbury Plain about nine miles northeast of the city of Salisbury. (See map facing p. 38.) It consists of a broken circle of huge upright stones, some of which are still connected at the top by blocks of flat stones. Within this circle, which is about one hundred feet in circumference, is a circle of smaller stones. The structure has no roof. The recent discover of stains of bronze or copper on one of the great stones, seven feet below the surface, strengthens the theory that Stonehenge was constructed by the race who used bronze implements and who were later known as Britons (S2). Consult Professor C. Oman's "England before the Norman Conquest"; see also R. W. Emerson's "English Traits," and O. W. Holmes's fine poem on the "Broken Circle," suggested by a visit to Stonehenge.
4. What we owe to Prehistoric Man.
We have seen that the Romans called the Britons "barbarians" (S2). But we should bear in mind that all the progress which civilization has since made is built on the foundations which those primitive races slowly and painfully laid during unnumbered centuries of toil and strife.