Slow and successive improvements taught them to cultivate the beans which grew wild among the marshes, and to tend and feed a small and degenerate breed of horned cattle.

But if these first steps toward civilization were slow, they were also sure; and they were made by a race of men who could never retrograde in a career once begun.
The Menapians, equally repugnant to foreign impressions, made, on their part, a more rapid progress.

They were already a maritime people, and carried on a considerable commerce with England.

It appears that they exported thither salt, the art of manufacturing which was well known to them; and they brought back in return marl, a most important commodity for the improvement of their land.

They also understood the preparation of salting meat, with a perfection that made it in high repute even in Italy; and, finally, we are told by Ptolemy that they had established a colony on the eastern coast of Ireland, not far from Dublin.
The two classes of what forms at present the population of the Netherlands thus followed careers widely different, during the long period of the Roman power in these parts of Europe.