Strabo observes in his Geography, that “the woods are their towns; for having fenced round a wide circular space with trees hewn down, they there place their huts, and fix stalls for their cattle; but not of long duration. They have dwellings of a round form, constructed of poles and wattled work, with very high pointed coverings of beams united at a point.”
Diodorus Siculus asserts, that “they inhabit very wretched dwellings, composed for the most part of reeds (or straw) and wood.”
Cæsar thus describes, not Londinium, but the capital of Cassivellaunus: “The Britons call a place, a town, when they have fortified thick impassable woods, by means of a vallum and fosse, or a high bank and a ditch; in which sort of a place they are accustomed to assemble together, to avoid the invasion of enemies.”
Tacitus describing the strong holds, to which Caractacus resorted, observes: “They then fortified themselves on steep mountains; and, where-ever there was any possibility of access in any part, he constructed a great bank of stones, like a vallum.”
The curious reader is referred to the first volume of King’s Munimenta Antiqua, for prints and plans, both of the Welsh houses and fortresses, of which some are yet entire and others in ruins, in every part of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. No book, either in our tongue, or in any of the European languages, is so complete and satisfactory on this interesting and domestic subject: the prints are excellent.
Diodorus Siculus also notices that the Britons laid up their corn in subterranean repositories, whence they used to take a portion every day; and having bruised and dried the grain, made a kind of food from it of immediate use. Martin in his description of the Western Isles, (p. 204.) describes this sort of diet, and the quick mode of preparing it, as yet continued. King, in the 48th and following pages of his first volume, has detected, and delineated these rude monuments of our ancestors.
It is highly curious to trace the appearance of the persons of our forefathers and their manners. Cæsar remarks that they painted themselves with vitrum, or woad; and Herodian, that some of them on the sea-coast punctured or tattooed[[48]] their bodies with figures resembling various kinds of animals; in consequence of which they also went without garments, that they might not cover, nor conceal, these marks. The other natives were, in general, clad with skins. They had long lank hair, but were shorn in every part of the body, except the head and upper lip.
A wretched substitute for salt was obtained merely by pouring sea-water on the embers of burning wood.
The Irish drank the blood of animals and even of their enemies.
King, in the latter half of the first volume, (Munim. Ant.) gives prints of the altars, or Cromlechs, yet entire, in many situations in Ireland, the Highlands, and England, on which human victims were cruelly murdered.