Transaction)). 29 



that lii.s offence is written down in history, and that he himself 

 is classed among the Goths and the Vandals. 



Passing from names to things, our interest does not grow less. 

 Belonging to a remote antiquity, the Lake Dwelling at Friars' 

 Carse carries us away back to a period before any history of our 

 country began to be written. The island in the middle of the 

 loch that lies close to the highway was long used as a place of 

 refuge in times of danger. In the days of the Border raids the 

 peaceful fraternity of monks, from whom Fi-iars' Carse derives 

 its name, were often hard put to it to bestow their goods and 

 gear where the wild reivers of Cumberland could not lay hands 

 upon them. That little island was their safe hiding-place. At 

 the first signal of danger, they conveyed their effects thither by a 

 path through the water known only to themselves. No enemy 

 suspected that the little wooded island concealed what they so 

 greatly desired to carry away, and if any attempted to ford the 

 narrow strip of water, the black yielding mud soon warned 

 them of their danger, and caused them to desist. 



It was not generally known that this ishind refuge had been 

 constructed by human hands; but in 1878, when the late Mr 

 Thomas Nelson partially .drained the loch, the structure was 

 laid bare. It was then seen to be one of the artificial lake- 

 dwellings built two thousand years ago or more as a place of 

 safety by the original inhabitants of the land. A mass of stout 

 oak beams rests upon the bottom of the loch, which cannot be 

 less than 15 or 16 feet in depth, and forms an island of oval 

 shape measuring 80 by 70 feet. On this island huts were 

 erected, traces of the partitions of which remain. Near the 

 middle there was a cii'cle of small stones forming a rude pave- 

 ment, evidently designed to protect the foundation of oaken logs 

 from fire. A canoe, hollowed out of a single tree-trunk, and the 

 paddle by which it was rowed, were found imbedded in the mud, 

 showing how the people who lived on the island went to and fro. 

 A stone axe and some fragments of pottery remained to show 

 what sort of people they were, and give some indication of tlieir 

 habits and ways of life. Further I'elics might have been found, 

 but for a singular and untoward accident which befell the 

 rubbish removed from the surface of the oak pavement. As this 

 was dug away, it was wheeled to what seemed a place of safety, 

 where it was to remain until it could be carefully turned over 

 and examined. One morning, however, the precious heap was 



