99 
nerable memorials of Christian piety and Celtic worship, so numer- 
ously scattered over the surface of the Aran Isles, fairly account for 
the enthusiasm, credulity, and second-sight of these islanders. 
Thescene reminds one of Major Rennell’s observations on Cashmere 
and its people:—%“ The pardonable superstition of the sequestered 
inhabitants has multiplied the places of worship of Mahado, of 
Besahan, and of Brama. All Cashmere is holy land, and mira- 
culous fountains abound.’’* 
These Isles must be viewed by the antiquary with profound at- 
tention. Here he meets, in multiplied variety, the Cairn, or sacred 
mount, on which the fire of Bel, or Beal, “ the Lord,’’ was eter- 
nally kept up. The sun was called Bel, being considered the 
Shechinah of the divine presence, the type of the Divinity, and the 
noblest object of the material creation: it was the Mihir of the 
Persian magi. Here he meets the immense flat stone, the Crom- 
leach, or altar of consecration and sacrifices, supported on erect 
stones; the circle, or circles, of stone pillars, which generally sur- 
round these altars, and which formed the outwork of the pyreum or 
fire-temple ; the lofty obelisks, some with, and some without, in- 
scriptions; and the lesser obelisks and tumuli, marking the habita- 
tions of “ the mighty dead.’”’ In these evidences of a worship, so 
celebrated and universal as the Druidic, there is nothing gorgeous, 
nothing splendid in the way of art: if measured by modern con- 
ceptions, they must appear mean and derogatory. We shall see, 
however, that such edifices, though rude and simple in the extreme, 
had been erected for divine worship by God’s own people, and by his 
express commandment. We shall see, that in this instance, and in 
many more, the patriarchal example had been followed by the ma- 
* Memoirs of a Map of Hindostan. 
