By William Long, Esq. 125 



In such a climate as that of Britain, dependent so much on solar 

 influence, for its material prosperity, would it be unreasonable to 

 suppose that the solar cultus would prevail ? It can hardly have 

 been an accident that the stone without the circles at Stonehenge 

 should have been so placed that the sun should rise immediately over 

 it at the summer solstice. A remarkable account is given by Mr. 

 W. Gr. Palgrave of a very similar structure to Stonehenge, which he 

 found in Arabia, where the heavenly bodies were the objects of wor- 

 ship ; it is as follows : " We had halted for a moment on the verge 

 of the uplands, to enjoy the magnificent prospect before us. All 

 along the ridge where we stood, and visible at various distances down 

 the level, rose the tall, circular watch-towers of Kaseem. But im- 

 mediately before us stood a more remarkable monument, one that 

 fixed the attention and wonder even of our Arab companions them- 

 selves. For hardly had we descended the narrow path where it 

 winds from ledge to ledge down to the bottom, when we saw before 

 us several huge stones, like enormous boulders, placed endways 

 perpendicularly on the soil, while some of them yet upheld similar 

 masses laid transversely over their summit. They were arranged in 

 a curve, once forming part, it would appear, of a large circle, and 

 many other like fragments lay rolled on the ground at a moderate 

 distance; the number of them still upright was, to speak from 

 memory, eight or nine. Two, at about ten or twelve feet apart one 

 from the other, and resembling huge gate-posts, yet bore their hori- 

 zontal lintel, a long block laid across them ; a few were deprived of 

 their upper traverse, the rest supported each its head-piece in defiance 

 of time and of the more destructive efforts of man. So nicely- 

 balanced did one of these cross-bars appear, that in hope it might 

 prove a rocking-stone, I guided my camel right under it, and then 



evil vision and fear by the baptism of its dew ; — if the sun itself is an 

 influence, to us also, of spiritual good — and becomes thus in reality, not in 

 imagination, to us also, a spiritual power, — we may then soon overpass the 

 narrow limit of conception which kept that power impersonal, and rise with 

 the Greek to the thought of an angel, who rejoiced as a strong man to run his 

 course, whose voice, calling to life and to labour, rang round the earth, and 

 whose going forth was to the ends of heaven." — Raskin's " Queen of the 

 Air," p. 11. 



