108 Mr. J. Hardy on Sepulchral Monuments. 



the field, must have been on most occasions a hasty one ; but all 

 of these for a rude people, provided with few means of trans- 

 port, and defective implements, must have been attended with 

 a very considerable degree of labour. The huge fragments that 

 compose the sides and tops of the graves had all to be quarried, 

 and conveyed from a distance, at a time when there were no 

 roads in existence ; and although detached stones are everywhere 

 numerous on the low grounds, a considerable time must have 

 elapsed before they were piled together. Wormius informs us 

 of two petty princes, with very expensive labour, employing them- 

 selves for successive years in erecting a single barrow*. It is 

 deserving also of mention, that these monuments are most nume- 

 rous in places where loose stones abound, and that they terminate 

 where none are to be met with. There is in one place near the 

 outer boundary the foundation of a cairn, apparently as ancient 

 as the others, that has either from defect of materials been aban- 

 doned after its commencement, or the stones that composed it 

 have been carried off to raise another's heap. This is enough 

 to convince us that these monuments are neither the result of 

 transitory labour nor temporary circumstances; nor, as some 

 have conjectured, the memorials of invading nations, but the 

 testimonials of native tribes to their own heroes and forefathers 

 in their common places of sepulture. These we find to have been 

 situated on the outskirts of fields, the borders of woods, the limits 

 of pasturages, or in desolate uncultivated spots, where they would 

 have little risk of being disturbed from generation to generation. 

 The fortification to which several of these monuments appear 

 to have been attached, occupied an area of about an acre, and 

 was defended by a single but very strong elevated ring, and was 

 connected with a smaller circular outpost lying towards the west, 

 and lower in position. It was situated at the head of a bank, in 

 a field to the west of Old Penmanshiel, and was popularly known 

 as " The Chesters," the Saxon appellation for the British Caers 

 or hill-fortlets. It contained two compartments of unequal extent, 

 one of which may have been designed to accommodate the human 

 occupants, the other for the safety of their cattle. The interior 

 was very unequal and full of stones, the vestiges probably of the 

 rude hovels of early times. A rude hand mill-stone, composed 

 of a sandstone originally white, but now yellow with age, dug 

 from amid the ruins, afforded an evidence that the inhabitants 

 had added the consumption of grain to the milk and flesh of 

 their flocks and herds, as the means of subsistence-}-- The "camp" 



* King's Munimenta Antiqua, i. 287. 



t Csesar, Strabo, and Dio Cassius, agree that the interior tribes sowed 

 no corn, but lived on milk and flesh (De Bell. Gall. 1. v. c. 14. Strabo, iv. 

 p. 200. Dio Cass. 1. lxxv.). In the report given by Tacitus of the speech of 



