"A Child's History of England" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickens Charles)

Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these.
Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill,
near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examination
of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they
could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious
machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons
certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I
should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with
them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept
the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then
pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand
in the fortresses too; at all events, as they were very powerful,
and very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws,
and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their trade.
And, as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were, the
better off the people would be, I don't wonder that there were a
good many of them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no
Druids, NOW, who go on in that way, and pretend to carry
Enchanters' Wands and Serpents' Eggs - and of course there is
nothing of the kind, anywhere.

Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five
years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their
great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the
known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul; and
hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with the
white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it
- some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the war
against him - he resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer
Britain next.

So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with
eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the
French coast between Calais and Boulogne, 'because thence was the
shortest passage into Britain;' just for the same reason as our
steam-boats now take the same track, every day. He expected to
conquer Britain easily: but it was not such easy work as he
supposed - for the bold Britons fought most bravely; and, what with
not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven
back by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed
to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great
risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold
Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but
that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go
away.

But, in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time, with
eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British tribes
chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans in
their Latin language called CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose British name