234 YORKSHIRE. EAST RIDING. 



A very different sight met our eye, when on a bright frosty day 

 in November, with a strong north-east wind sweeping over the 

 hills, we commenced opening the barrows. Below us was, as of 

 old, the mighty stone, ancient of days ; but side by side with it 

 stood the shrine of a purer faith, a more humane teaching ; whilst 

 round it rose in the clear air from many a chimney the pale blue 

 line of smoke, suggestive of comforts those older people never 

 dreamed of. The cold and cheerless wold, with its flocks of bus- 

 tards and flights of dotterel, had given place to bright-green 

 cultured fields, and flocks of sheep, and teams of horses turning up 

 the rich brown mould in preparation for the golden sheaves of the 

 next coming harvest. And just as great a change had taken place 

 in the other direction, in what had been the dreary swamps of the 

 old days. There the rough sedges, and rank growth of rush and 

 reed, and the thickets of the water-loving alder and the willow 

 were replaced by fields teeming with agricultural wealth, and diver- 

 sified by hedgerows broken up by the varying forms of oak and 

 ash and elm-tree. Far away rose the towers of Beverley, the 

 beautiful minster, the creation of a belief and culture which, un- 

 like that of the people who raised the Rudstone, has not died 

 away. Still further in the distance, and dimly seen in the haze of 

 the far-off horizon, were tall chimneys, and the smoke which 

 marked where Hull, with its commerce and manufactures, was in 

 itself more stirring and changing than was all the world with 

 which these ancient wold-dwellers were acquainted. In the dis- 

 tance still, but nearer to us, was the Bay of Bridlington, where 

 hundreds of ships were lying at anchor, kept there by the wind 

 which forbade a course to the north. There they were, laden with 

 the products and goods of many a land, manned by the sons of 

 many a clime, making the whole world akin in purpose and pursuit. 

 As we looked, the thought could not but be stirred How much 

 have we changed from those who, in the dark past, raised the 

 mound on which we are standing, and which they thought would 

 speak with no faltering tongue to all future time ! How much 

 more from us will those have changed who, thousands of years 

 hence, may stand on the self-same spot, and to whom our boasted 

 knowledge may seem as feeble and as strange as we think theirs who 

 laid beside the ashes of the departed the food they thought he 

 needed for the journey to the unknown land. 



LXII. The first barrow of this group which I examined was 



