I893-94-] 73 



present constructed in savage lands ; the more rings that sur- 

 rounded the stronghold rendered it the more difficult of capture 

 by the enemy, as each redoubt had to be taken separately. 

 Small twisted passages were left through the stakes, and these 

 could be closed at a moment's notice. The houses in which 

 the families lived were in the centre, and were built of stakes, 

 wattled and covered with mud and thatched with sods or grass. 

 The interior was fitted up according to the taste or inclination 

 of the owner — the walls and floors being covered with skins and 

 other trophies of the chase. In similar raths to those in our 

 vicinity have been found the remains of red and fallow deer, 

 oxen, horses, swine, and fowl, with cooking places made in the 

 earth filled with charcoal, burnt stones and calcined bones ; 

 clinkers have also been dug up, showing that iron was worked, 

 of which fragments have also been found. Numerous querns, 

 hones, and sling stones have been got ; also, bone pins, piercers, 

 beads, combs, and knife handles. 



None of the forts in our immediate vicinity are of any great 

 size, of course always excepting MacArt's Fort, which is the 

 pride and glory of our landscape. It would be almost sacrilege 

 to measure it, as nothing but " time's effacing finger " shall 

 ever destroy its outline, and assuredly we shall not live to see 

 that. This fort is mostly natural, but partly artificial, and was 

 doubtless occupied by a MacArt O'Neill, after whom it is 

 called ; but its first occupation is lost in the mists of time. 

 The contour of the hill from certain points resembles a human 

 face, and in the revolutionary times of '98 was likened to the 

 head of Freedom crowned with the cap of Liberty. One of 

 our members, a youthful poetess of no mean excellence, has 

 recently sung of this self same hill — 



The face was shaped and hewn, these rocks were blent 



In earliest ages of creation's morn, 



When by the earthquake's shock the globe was rent, 



And from the fire and flood the hills were born j 



When ocean swept over cape and continent, 



And all lands were of sentient life forlorn, 



And no man witnessed from our island coast 



The marching of the glacier's spectral host. 



