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No subject has had more attraction for inquirers into the early history of these islands than the question of the earliest intercourse between Britain and the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean, to whom all the civilisation of Europe is due. Camden, the Father of English Archæology, identified the Cassiterides of the ancients with the Scilly Isles, and gave currency to the belief, which has prevailed ever since, that the Phœnicians traded to Britain. Mr. Elton (Origins of English History) has given good reasons for doubting this hypothesis, and has shown that the Tin Islands of the ancient writers are rather a group of small islands off the coast of Northern Spain. But we can have no doubt that there was an extensive trade between Gaul and Britain before Julius Cæsar ever set foot on this island. The nature of this trade in general we learn from Strabo; for it is not likely that there had been great variation in the nature of the objects exported and imported between 55 B.C. and the time when the geographer wrote (cir. A.D. 1-19). Strabo (iv, 199) enumerates corn (wheat, σῖτος), cattle, gold, silver, iron, skins, slaves, and dogs, used by the Kelts for war as well as the chase, and gives us likewise the list of imports into Britain, which comprised “ivory bracelets and necklaces, and red amber beads (λυγγούρια) and vessels of glass (ὑαλᾶ σκεύη), and such like trumpery wares (ἄλλος ῥῶπος τοιοῦος).” Strangely enough, Strabo omits tin from his schedule of products and exports, although elsewhere, as we shall see, he quotes a passage from Posidonius referring to that trade, and Cæsar mentions it amongst the products of Britain as being found in the interior (in mediterraneis regionibus, B.G., v, 12). It is quite possible, as we shall see hereafter, that the tin trade with the Continent had died out in the time of Cæsar, and that it was not until after the Roman conquest, in the middle of the following century, that the mines of Cornwall were again developed. To the list of imports given by Strabo we may add copper, on the authority of Cæsar (ære utuntur importato, v, 12). Diodorus Siculus (v, 22) gives an account of the tin mining in Cornwall, which is probably based on the account of the Stoic Posidonius, who travelled in Britain about B.C. 90: “The inhabitants of that part of Britain which is called Belerion are very fond of strangers, and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully the earth in which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted, and purified. They beat the metal into masses, shaped like astragali,[1] and carry it to a certain island lying off Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and they carry over into this island the tin in abundance in their waggons. Now there is a peculiar phenomenon connected with the neighbouring islands, I mean those that lie between Europe and Britain; for at the flood-tide the intervening passage is overflowed, and they seem like islands; but a large space is left dry at the ebb, and then they seem to be like peninsulas. Here, then, the merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on horses to the mouth of the Rhone.”