Amen.
It was computed that over three hundred houses were destroyed in this
great fire; but the prayer of the writer of the pamphlet, as to the
town's being raised up again, had been granted. The county of Dorset
generally, lies in the sunniest part of England, and the town was now
prospering and thoroughly healthy, the death-rate being well below the
average: did not the great Dr. Arbuthnot leave it in despair with the
remark, "In Dorchester a physician can neither live nor die"?
Dorchester was one of the largest stations of the Romans in England, and
their amphitheatre just outside the town was the most perfect in the
country, the Roman road and Icknield ways passing quite near it. There
were three great earthworks in the immediate neighbourhood--the Maumbury
Rings or Amphitheatre, the Poundbury Camp, and the far-famed Maiden
Castle, one of the greatest British earthworks; in fact Roman and other
remains were so numerous here that they were described as being "as
plentiful as mushrooms," and the whole district was noted for its
"rounded hills with short herbage and lots of sheep." We climbed up the
hill to see the amphitheatre, which practically adjoined the town, and
formed one of the most remarkable and best preserved relics of the Roman
occupation in Britain.
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