126 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



run beneath a single horizontal enclosed line. On the outside 

 is a handle, but too small for the ringer ; it was probably 

 secured round its owner's neck by a string passed through this 

 projection. 



This very rare and curious relic is formed, it is now 

 almost conclusively settled, of Kimmeridge coal, and it has 

 probably been turned on a pole lathe. We had an opportu- 

 nity of inspecting it soon after its discovery, and were much 

 surprised at its lightness and delicacy, to say nothing of its ad- 

 mirable preservation. What a train of far-reaching thoughts, 

 too, did it arouse, thoughts which pierced the mists that sur- 

 round the dawn of authentic history, and then recoiled upon 

 themselves in baffled awe ! 



In the second mound was discovered a curious "incense 

 cup " of pale brown clay, some two inches high and three inches 

 wide, ornamented with rectangular compartments enclosing 

 the well-known "herring-bone " markings .Even the bottom of 

 it was covered with marks of this kind arranged in a rude cruci- 

 form fashion. It contained apparently the calcined bones of an 

 infant, which was possibly buried here along with its mother. 

 Suttee and infanticide are abominations supposed to have been 

 practised in pagan Britain, therefore it is not necessary to sup- 

 pose that the baby was dead when thus buried together with its 

 mother. In his researches amongst the kitchen-middens of 

 Caithness, Mr. Laing found a couple of human jaw-bones under 

 circumstances which raise a strong presumption that these 

 primitive races were cannibals, if not always, at least under the 

 pressure of starvation. The third mound on being opened dis- 

 played fragments of a cinerary urn of the usual wide-rimmed 

 type, together with a food-vessel of singular shape. No bones 

 were found, no skulls over which Science could wrangle 

 whether they were of the brachycephalic or dolichocephalic 

 variety. That these interments were not Roman, the absence 

 of the coins and pottery usually found in their graves naturally 



