liy WiUiam Long, Esq. 89 



The Avenues and Cursus. 

 Neither Webb nor Aubrey appear to have found out the avenues 

 or cursus, and Stukeley might fairly claim to have been the discoverer 

 of them both. As such, he shall describe them : " The avenue o£ 

 Stonehenge was never observM by any who have wrote of it^ tho^ a 

 very elegant part of it, and very apparent," and again, " About half 

 a mile north of Stonehenge, across the first valley, is the cursus or 



which have been fouDd no traces of any interment, and it may be fairly 

 believed that they were set up for some object of more general importance. 



In the very interesting volumes by Mr. E. H. Palmer, entitled the " Desert 

 of the Exodus," he tells us of "huge stone circles in the neighbourhood of 

 Mount Sinai, some of them measuring 100 feet in diameter, having a cist in the 

 centre covered with a heap of larger boulders. These are nearly identical in 

 construction with the ' Druidical Circles ' of Britain. In the cists we found 

 human skeletons, the great antiquity of which was proved not only by the 

 decayed state of the bones, but by the fact that the bodies had in every case 

 been doubled up and buried in such a position that the head and knees met. 

 There are also small open enclosures in the circles, in which burnt earth and 

 charcoal were found." (p. 140.) At page 337, we have his account of digging 

 into a stone circle in another part of the desert and finding charcoal and burnt 

 earth "in what I have before alluded to as the sacrificial area, but nothing at 

 all in the central cairn." 8ome of our ariha3ologists are intent upon main- 

 taining that all cromlechs have been at some time or other covered with earth, 

 and that these, and all stone circles, have been sepulchral ; but these exclusive 

 and one-sided views are not in harmony either with reason or experience. 



The writer takes this opportunity of saying that a note at page 38 of " Abury 

 Illustrated," respecting " sacrificial " cromlechs, was inserted at the wish of a 

 friend ; but that it is not, and was not, in accordance with his own judgment in 

 the matter. 



The mention of Silbury Hill suggests that the following poem, by Southey, should 

 have a place in the Wiltshire ArchEeological and Natural History Magazine: — 



" INSCEIPTION FOE A TABLET AT SILBUEY HILL. 



This mound in some remote and dateless day 

 Kear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills, 

 May here detain thee. Traveller I from thy road 

 Not idly lingering. In his narrow house 

 Some warrior sleeps below, whose gallant deeds 

 Haply at many a solemn festival 

 The Scauld hath sung; but perish' d is the song 

 Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs 

 The wind that passes and is heard no more. 

 Go, Traveller, and remember when the pomp 

 Of Earthly Glory fades, that one good deed, 

 Unseen, unheard, imnoted by mankind 

 Lives in the Eternal register of Ueaven. 



1796." 



