[37]. On putting the inquiry pointedly to a person who had ploughed up some portions of the Vallum in the neighbourhood of Wallend, Cumberland, and who was also acquainted with the mode in which the Maiden-way (a Roman road) was formed, I was told that there were no traces of pavement in the Vallum.
[38]. We must not, however, pronounce a road to be impracticable, because now it would be thought so. A Northumberland farmer, speaking to me upon this subject, said he had seen roads which, in his neighbourhood, were regularly traversed only a century ago, on which no one would venture now-a-days; ‘it was like coming down a crag-side.’ He had driven through mosses in which the horses were commonly enveloped, but had no misgivings so long as he could see the heads of the animals.
[39]. Hodgson, however, distinctly proves, that the cornage, or castle-guard rent of the North of England—originally a payment in lieu of cattle, and called in English, horngeld and neatgeld, cattle-tax, or ox-lay—has nothing whatever to do with sounding the war-alarm by horns.
[40]. It must, however, be borne in mind, that even the uneducated labourer, in a highly civilized community, has unconsciously received a considerable amount of mental training, which places him in a situation much superior to that of the mere savage.
[41]. The remainder of this valuable communication is, in order to avoid repetition, embodied in the subsequent account of the Masonry of the Wall.
[42]. Hodgson II. ii. 298.
[43]. It would be described by a modern builder as a rough blocking course.
[44]. The cuts representing these markings are transferred from my note book, without reference to scale.
[45]. Concrete contains less lime, and is mixed with a smaller proportion of water than grout. It is chiefly used in large masses, to form an artificial foundation for a building.
[46]. The almost entire absence of those little white lumps of lime, not properly mixed with sand, which are found in the imperfectly prepared mortar of modern times, shews that the lime must in some way have been crushed by rollers or beaters.