xxviii HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



of reasoning, Toland did not hesitate to make the Druid 

 Abaris a Lewisman ; Abaris who paid a visit to Pytha- 

 goras, by whom he was taught the mysteries of the number 

 seven. It is unkind of Archaeology, with its contempt for 

 romantic speculation, to demolish so pretty a theory, but 

 the honour of appropriating the Callernish remains as the 

 famous Temple of Apollo ; of adding the name of Abaris 

 to the list of celebrated Hebrideans ; and of claiming 

 descent from the Hyperboreans of old, who lived " in a 

 land of perpetual sunshine, where the swans sang like 

 nightingales, and life was an unending banquet " must, one 

 fears, be denied to Lewismen alike by fact and by reason. 

 Life in Lewis at the present day, far from being an " un- 

 ending banquet," is too frequently an unending want, and 

 the sunshine, far from being " perpetual," is too frequently 

 of a fitful character, both from a climatic and a material 

 point of view. 



No less elusive, from an historical standpoint, than the 

 Callernish stones are those peculiar erections on the Long 

 Island which are indifferently called Pictish forts, or 

 brochs, and Danish burghs. They are a puzzle alike to the 

 antiquary and to the historian. Who built them, and for 

 what purpose they were erected still remains a mystery, 

 and in all probability the problem will never be solved 

 with absolute certainty. The nurhags of Sardinia, which, 

 it has been suggested, may have been used by the Phoeni- 

 cians for sun-worship, bear a certain resemblance to the 

 Scottish brochs and Irish round towers, but it is suffi- 

 ciently clear that the brochs were not intended for 

 religious exercises. The generally accepted theory is 

 that they were used for defensive purposes ; perhaps as 

 watch-towers to guard against a surprise, and garrisoned 

 against attack. It has also been suggested that they may 

 have been utilised as places in which to keep military 

 arms, and Dr. Johnson thought that they may have been 

 used for securing the cattle, when an attack threatened from 

 the outside. According to the Lewis tradition, Dun Carlo- 

 way, the principal broch in the island, was built in the fourth 



