We have some vestiges in England of the
_hippodromus_, in which the ancient inhabitants of this country performed
their races. The most remarkable is that near Stonehenge, which is a long
tract of ground, about three hundred and fifty feet, or two hundred Druid
cubits wide, and more than a mile and three quarters, or six thousand
Druid cubits in length, enclosed quite round with a bank of earth,
extending directly east and west. The goal and career are at the east end.
The goal is a high bank of earth, raised with a slope inwards, on which
the judges are supposed to have sat. The metae are two tumuli, or small
barrows, at the west end of the course. These _hippodromes_ were called,
in the language of the country, _rhedagua_; the racer, _rhedagwr_; and the
carriage, _rheda_--from the British word rhedeg, to run.
One of these _hippodromes_, about half a mile to the southward of
Leicester, retains evident traces of the old name, _rhedagua_ in the
corrupted one of Rawdikes. "There is another of these," says Dr. Stukely,
"near Dorchester; and another on the banks of the river Lowther, near
Penrith, in Cumberland; and another in the valley just without the
town of Royston."
WALTER E.C.
_Pratt-street, Lambeth.
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