` Is it just a Wall ? Like the one round the kitchen-garden ? ' said Dan . ` No , no ! It is the Wall . Along the top are towers with guard-houses , small towers , between . Even on the narrowest part of it three men with shields can walk abreast , from guard-house to guard-house . A little curtain wall , no higher than a man 's neck , runs along the top of the thick wall , so that from a distance you see the helmets of the sentries sliding back and forth like beads . Thirty feet high is the Wall , and on the Picts ' side , the North , is a ditch , strewn with blades of old swords and spear-heads set in wood , and tyres of wheels joined by chains . The Little People come there to steal iron for their arrow-heads . ` But the Wall itself is not more wonderful than the town behind it . Long ago there were great ramparts and ditches on the South side , and no one was allowed to build there . Now the ramparts are partly pulled down and built over , from end to end of the Wall ; making a thin town eighty miles long . Think of it ! One roaring , rioting , cock-fighting , wolf-baiting , horse-racing town , from Ituna on the West to Segedunum on the cold eastern beach ! On one side heather , woods and ruins where Picts hide , and on the other , a vast town -- long like a snake , and wicked like a snake . Yes , a snake basking beside a warm wall ! ` My Cohort , I was told , lay at Hunno , where the Great North Road runs through the Wall into the Province of Valentia . ' Parnesius laughed scornfully . ` The Province of Valentia !
We followed the road , therefore , into XXXXX town , and stood astonished .
Dan Hunno North Picts Road Segedunum guard-house guard-houses ramparts sentries