5. General Creuly,[3276] referring to Caesar’s description of the storm by which some of his cavalry transports, after they were descried from his camp in 55 B.C., were driven further down the coast,[3277] maintains that the only point to which they could have been driven was Dungeness. It follows, he says, that the camp could not have been at Deal; for its distance from Dungeness is far too great.
The answer to this curious argument is, first, that it is plainly impossible to indicate the exact point to which the ships were driven; secondly, that it was certainly not Dungeness, for Dungeness did not exist in Caesar’s time;[3278] thirdly, that there is nothing in Caesar’s narrative to show how far the point to which the ships were driven was from his camp; and, fourthly, that if the camp was at or near Deal, there is nothing in his narrative to show that the ships could not have run before the gale as far as the longitude of Dungeness, or even a good deal further. From Deal to Dungeness is only about 28 nautical miles; and if the ships approached the British coast in the morning,[3279] they would have had the greater part of the day in which to make the run.
6. General Creuly[3280] calls attention to the passage, which I have already more than once quoted, in which Caesar tells us that at daybreak, on his second voyage, he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port-quarter’. If, says the general, Caesar had steered for Deal, he would have had the coast of Britain on the port side throughout the voyage, and there would have been no point in the words sub sinistra. He insists that these words are simply the correlative of longius: Caesar saw Britain on the left because the flood had carried him too far.
It will be remembered that Appach used this passage to prove that Caesar landed in the (assumed) Bay of Appledore.[3281] Creuly uses it to prove that Caesar landed near Hythe. I have shown the futility of Appach’s argument; and to answer Appach is to answer Creuly. I may remark, however, that Caesar does not merely say that he saw Britain ‘on the left’ (sub sinistra): he says that he saw it ‘lying behind on the left’ (sub sinistra relictam). The coast could not have been described as ‘lying behind on the left’ until after Caesar had passed the South Foreland;[3282] and, although he was steering not for Hythe, but for some point on the coast of East Kent, the flood tide did carry him ‘too far’.
7. Many commentators have argued that Caesar’s account of the last stage of his second voyage is inconsistent with the theory that he landed near Deal. It will be remembered that, after telling us that ‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’, he goes on to say that he then followed the turn of the tide, and that all his ships reached the landing-place by rowing towards midday. The tide which he followed was of course the westward stream: strictly speaking, its direction, if he had drifted to some point east of the Goodwin Sands, was south-west[3283] (magnetic), or between south-west by south and south-south-west (true). It is very doubtful, Lewin thinks, whether, with a current running at the rate of 3¾ miles an hour, the fleet could, by the mere use of oars, have reached Deal at all; and it is certain that, in order to do so, it would have been necessary to steer ‘across, if not actually against the current’. Caesar ‘could not’, Lewin concludes, ‘be said to follow the tide when he was steering athwart it. Besides, as it must necessarily have been almost low water when the tide turned, had he held on for Deal he would infallibly have struck on the Goodwin Sands.’[3284] Airy, on the other hand, asserts that Caesar ‘must have been cast upon the Goodwin Sands’ during the drift.[3285]
Now the reader will have already perceived that if Lewin’s argument tells against the view that Caesar landed near Deal, it is fatal to the view which Lewin himself defends. For Lewin’s theory compels him to assume that Caesar had drifted no further than a point off the South Foreland:[3286] in order to reach Hythe he would have had to row less than thirteen nautical miles, with the stream throughout; and it is therefore not easy to understand why his rowers should have been called upon to make any extraordinary efforts. This point he ignores. Again, he admits, or rather insists, that Caesar must have drifted as far as the South Foreland; but it is easy to demonstrate that if Caesar had been steering for Hythe, he could not have drifted so far. For, as Lewin himself says, the length of the drift must, in that case, have been not less than twelve nautical miles.[3287] Now the drift only lasted from about midnight till daybreak; and, assuming that it lasted four hours—a liberal estimate—the stream actually travelled, at the most, nine miles:[3288] of course the ships would not have travelled so far if they had merely drifted,[3289] but the faint breeze, without which they would not have had steerage-way,[3290] may have made up the deficit. But, in order to give Lewin every chance, let us accept the most favourable of three estimates with which he himself supplies us. He says[3291] that ‘the greatest velocity of the tide is, according to the Tidal Tables, 3.3 knots an hour.... The drift would, of course, be less than the velocity.... From midnight till daybreak at 4 a.m., would, therefore, give a drift of twelve miles’. But Caesar’s voyage took place on or about the 7th of July;[3292] and daybreak was about 3.15 a.m. This consideration alone compels us to reduce Lewin’s estimate to ten miles and a half; and, moreover, he forgets that the tide never runs for four consecutive hours, much less for the last four hours, at its greatest velocity.[3293] Thus the argument upon which he relies to prove that Caesar must have landed at Hythe turns and pulverizes his already shattered theory.
On the hypothesis that Caesar landed anywhere between Walmer and Sandwich, the statement that he ‘followed the turn of the stream’ presents no difficulty unless he meant that from the time when the tide turned until the time when he reached Britain his men were rowing hard exactly in the direction of the stream. This is what Lewin assumes. But Caesar says no such thing. What he says is that, having followed the turn of the tide, he rowed hard in order to gain the desired landing-place. So long as the tide served, hard rowing was obviously unnecessary,—if the Goodwin Sands existed. In that case the true explanation is a modification of that offered by C. Schneider,[3294] who says, ‘As long as it was possible to follow the turn of the tide, rowing was unnecessary. But after they had reached a point where they could do so no longer without being carried past their destination, they took to rowing.’ Of course they would not have trusted to the current alone at any time; but, supposing that the Goodwin Sands then existed or that an island occupied their site, they travelled south-westward with the current until they had turned the obstacle, and then rowed hard in a north-westerly direction, across the current,[3295] till they reached the landing place.[3296]
The question of the Goodwin Sands has been discussed in an earlier part of this book.[3297] Either they did not exist in the time of Caesar, the substratum on which they rest being covered by the sea; or they did exist, but had not accumulated to their present height, or perhaps to their present extent; or they were virtually identical with the present sands, though their limits, which are not constant, may not have been the same as they are now; or, finally, as Sir Charles Lyell suggested, their place may have been occupied by an island. The question cannot be positively settled; but, for reasons which I have already given, I am rather inclined to believe that either Sir Charles Lyell’s suggestion was right, or the sands had accumulated sufficiently to be visible, or at all events dangerous, at certain points at low water. I shall, however, presently take account of the possibility that neither of these alternatives is true.
Much depends upon the answer which is to be given to the question, To what point had Caesar drifted when he saw the coast of Britain? Heller argues that this point must have been about nine miles due east of Ramsgate; but, as I have shown in the previous article, his reasoning is unsound.[3298] If Caesar had drifted to the point which Heller indicates, his course to Deal, where, according to Heller, he disembarked, would have been nearly south-west, that is to say, nearly identical with the direction of the Gull Stream, which is described in the Admiralty Tide Tables as SW. ½ W. (magnetic), or, approximately, SW. by S. true.[3299] But, on this hypothesis, it would be inexplicable that his soldiers were obliged to row hard. Heller, indeed, conjectures that Caesar steered for the nearest point of the coast, that is to say, nearly due west, intending to keep close inshore until he found the landing-place; and he remarks that this would explain why his men were obliged to use their oars instead of committing themselves to the stream alone.[3300] But Caesar must have known the whereabouts of his landing-place; and Heller’s explanation seems to be far-fetched. Besides, as I shall presently show, Caesar, on his second expedition, did not land between Walmer and Deal, but in the neighbourhood of Sandwich.
For reasons which I have given in the article on the Portus Itius[3301] I think we must conclude with Napoleon the Third,[3302] that Caesar could hardly have drifted much further than a point on the latitude of Deal and east of the Goodwin Sands. When the tide turned soon after daybreak—about 4.30 a.m., if, as is probable, the day was the 7th of July[3303]—he would have dropped down with the ebb as I have already explained. If, after he had passed the sands or the island, he had waited till about 9.30 a.m., the stream would have turned, and have begun to flow NE. ½ N.[3304] magnetic, or, approximately, NNE. true: if he had not waited, he would have had to row hard, as I have shown above,[3305] athwart a stream which was flowing at a rate varying from three to two knots, until it turned about 9.30.