The HIGHLANDS of SCOTLAND. 31 



men and children of the canton, and of their herds. They 

 could be defended by a few men, while the reft of the tribe 

 were engaged with their enemies in the field. 



In the defcription 1 have given of the fortified hill of Dun- 

 Jardel upon Loch-Nefs, I mentioned a Druidical circle upon the 

 fhoulder of the hill about fifty or fixty feet below the fortification ^ 

 and hinted, that this circumftance might poffibly afford ground 

 for a conjedure with regard to the date of thofe extraordinary 

 ftrudures on the tops of hills. 



The religion of the Druids obtained in Britain long before 

 the period of the Roman invafion ; and it was probably intro- 

 duced into the ifland by the firfl: colony of Celtse or Gauls who 

 landed from the continent *. If, as is generally fuppofed, this 

 ifland was adually peopled from Gaul, Druidifm muft have been 

 the religion of its firft inhabitants. I am difpofed, however, 

 to believe, that this ifland was inhabited of old by a race of 

 men who knew nothing of the religion of the Druids, whofe- 

 manners and mode of life were too barbarous to be compatible 

 with that fyftem, and who, in after times, adopted from thofe 

 Druids their firfl ideas of civilization and improvement. The 

 Druids, it is well known, were a very enlightened order of men ; 

 and they had the addrefs to avail themfelves of that charader 

 of wifdom and learning, in obtaining an abfolute controul, not 

 only in matters of religion, but in the civil government of the 

 countries in which they were eftablifhed. They cultivated the 

 mechanic arts, and even the fciences of Medicine, Aftronomy 

 and Geometry, with confiderable fuccefs. In fliort, no nation, 

 among whom that fyftem had become prevalent, could long re- 

 main in a ftate of barbarifm. But, from all the ideas we can 



form- 



• This idea is not contradifled by the faft, of which we are afTured by Caesar, viz. 

 That the Druids of Gaul were fent over for inftruftion to Britain. This fa£l proves 

 only, that the Britifh Druids, in the folitude of the diftant ifland of Mona, had made 

 farther advances in the fciences at that time, than their brethren on the continent. Cm- 

 SAR indeed thence conjeflures, that the Druidical fyftem had been invented in Britaiaj 

 but this conjeflure has no other balls than the faft above mentioned. 



