ANCIENT CHAMBERED TUMULI. 59 



which originally surrounded the base of the whole mound, 

 and of which ten remain. 



"Provided with light," says he, "I entered the external 

 aperture, and after making my way along a narrow gallery, 

 more than sixty feet in length, and from four to six feet in 

 height, the sides of which were formed of rough blocks of 

 stone, set upright, and supporting a roof of large flat slabs, 

 I penetrated to the central Chamber. 



" I shall never forget the stränge feeling of awe which I 

 experienced as soon as I had thoroughly lighted up this 

 singular monument of unknown antiquity. Wordsworth 

 says on the sight of a somewhat similar monument : 



'A weight of awe not easy to be borne 

 Fell suddenly upon my spirit — cast 

 From the dread bosom of the unknown past.' 



And no person not totally insensible to the influence of 

 the idea of vast shadowy antiquity, which such remains are 

 calculated to excite, could stand under the Cyclopean dorne 

 of the cairn at New Grange, without some feelings akin to 

 those of the poet. Indeed, next to the Pyramids, to which 

 it bears some resemblance, and only exceeded by them in 

 grandeur and interest. There is probably, in Europe at 

 least, no monument of the kind more imposing in size than 

 this enormous mound. As soon as I was enabled with 

 some distinctness to make out the plan of the gloomy 

 crypt in which I stood, I found myself under a rüde dorne 

 more than twenty feet in height, formed by huge flat 

 stones overlapping each other, and the apex capped by a 

 single immense block, being laid above the sloping masses, 

 which gradually receded, giving its dome-like appearance 

 to the roof, and formed a sort of key-stone to the vault. 



"This dorne is itself supported by gigantic blocks of 

 unhewn stone, forming an irregulär octagon apartment, 



