.115 



congenial ; and from ecclesiastical historians it appears that invaria- 

 bly the progress of Christianity has been rapid in proportion to 

 the previous degree of mental cultivation.* 



Nor does the circumstance that no remains of dwelling houses 

 are found in existence at all warrant the hasty conclusion, that 

 this was a nation of savages, dwelling only in caves, dens, and 

 forests, since a similar inference might on the same grounds apply 

 to Assyria, Egypt, Persia, and Palestine. No houses, not even a 

 palace of ancient times remains in those countries, the cradles of 

 the arts ; and for the same reason — they were not built of durable 

 materials ; there, as with us, no buildings have survived the wreck 

 of time but those of a religious character. 



When the ancient inhabitants settled in Ireland they most pro- 

 bably built their houses in the manner to which they had been 

 accustomed — that which, to the present day, continues in the un- 

 changing east. 



Over the greater part of India, in Mesopotamia, and among the 

 tribes dwelling in the valleys of the Caucasus, the houses are 

 built of closely woven wicker-work, plastered within and without 

 with mud, tempered into an adhesive mortar. Of such materials 

 Giraldus Cambrensis tells us, the palace built at Dublin by King 

 Henry II. was constructed, as he says, " according to the fashion 

 of the country," a fashion followed probably because there was not 

 time for any more solid erection ;-f- neither could this mode be very 

 surprising to the British, as it was also employed in England, and 

 continued to be in use to a late period. 



Houses built entirely of tempered mud are extremely common in 



* O'Connor's Letters on Ireland in Collect. Reb. Hib. iii. p. 227. 

 \- Littleton's Hist. Hen. U. v. IIL p. 88. 



q2 



