THE history of British voyages and discoveries must of necessity begin with Cæsar. The stories of Brutus' or Brute's sailing to Albion in the days of Æneas, with the attendant fables, may be dismissed as the figment of some ingenious monk's brain. They appear to have had little basis in legend and none in history. The visit of Pytheas of Marseilles to the British Isles in the fourth century B.C., and the casual mention of the Phœnician tin trade with the Cassiterides—which may or may not be some part of England—are the only references to our history in these dark ages. The indirect evidence of British seafaring in these times is, however, considerable. A cork plug, discovered in a canoe of very early date disinterred from the silt at Glasgow,[1] points to intercourse with Spain; Italian earthenware has been discovered in Lanarkshire; the red amber, so largely found in early barrows, indicates a trade with the Baltic countries;[2] whilst torques of gold and strings of bright-coloured glass beads, which cannot have been made in the island, are equally good evidence of commerce with the Phœnicians and the land of the south.[3] Strabo alludes to the fact that the Romans imposed customs duties upon the British imports from Celtica, which consisted of ivory, bracelets, amber, and glass.[4]
It is not quite certain that the Britons of this date voyaged
