418 



NORTHUMBERLAND. 



taken to indicate their sepulchral purpose. In these three instances, 

 as in many others where the same feature has occurred, I have no 

 doubt whatever that they had each been occupied by an unburnt 

 body, the bones of which had totally disappeared through the action 

 of the various disintegrating agencies to which, during a long period, 

 they had been subjected. 



PARISH OP EGLINGHAM. Ord. Map. cix. N.W. 



Ascending the valley of the before -mentioned river, which 

 however at this part has not assumed the name of Till, but is 

 called the Breamish, we arrive at a locality rich in varied relics of 

 the far past. The whole of the right bank of the stream has its 

 rocky and precipitous boundary crowned with fortified places, some 

 of them of remarkable interest, and preserving their principal 

 features untouched except by time. Closely adjoining to the 

 peculiar double camp on Bewick Hill is one of the largest series of 

 circular rock-sculptures yet discovered, and cairns and other sepul- 

 chral places have been very abundant on the adjoining moorland. 

 Most of them have been opened by the shepherds, under the 

 delusive hope of finding treasure. I possess a fragment of a 

 * drinking cup ' from one of the cairns, in which were two cists, the 

 cover-stone of one exhibiting the almost unique feature of the use 

 of a tool upon it, in the shape of a groove cut with a sharp-pointed 

 instrument round its narrower end, no doubt with the object of 

 facilitating its being dragged the more easily up the side of the 

 hill upon the summit of which the cairn is placed. 



CC. Somewhat lower down the hill than the cairn just referred 

 to, and upon a piece of rising ground near to the shepherd's house 

 called Blawearie, is a circle (36ft. in diameter) of stones set on 

 edge, some of them being in contact with each other, whilst others 

 stand apart. Within the circle were a number of ordinary cobble- 

 stones (such as might be gathered from the surface of the ground) , 

 the remains probably of a cairn which had been removed to aid in 

 the building of a neighbouring wall. Some years ago a cist was 

 discovered at the centre, which contained a vessel of pottery now 

 lost. I examined the whole of the remaining space within the 

 circle, and met with three other cists. The first was 9| ft. south- 

 west of the centre, and was placed north-west and south-east; it 

 was formed of four slabs of sandstone set on edge, with a fifth for 



