350 TYNEDALE ESCARPMENTS; 



If, then, pot-holes were deemed supeniatural by the ancient 

 Biitons, or were made so by their priests, there seems no reason 

 that human veneration and desire to possess the likeness of the 

 thing venerated should not have acted, as they have so often acted 

 since, in impelling the exercise of the imitative powers. These 

 rude figures, — of which all that is with certainty known is that 

 they were religious symbols, — may owe their existence to a dark 

 kind of the same religious devotion that inspired a Rafaelle. 

 Tliat the incised cup with its "radial groove" was the most 

 natural fonu for the imitations to take needs no proof. In mak- 

 ing use of cups to catch water, and channels to lead it away, 

 underneath waste-pipes and at wells, we now-a-days convention- 

 alize the pot-hole and duct exactly as the ancient Britons did. 



How the great departures from the simple idea of the cup and 

 channel — the superadded circles, irreguhir enclosures, spii*als, 

 etc., came about, is a question I am not qualified to discuss. 

 They may have introduced some other symbolism,* or they 

 may have been imaginary additions like those ordinary deve- 

 lopments of art which have elaborated the plain Doric into 

 the ornate Corinthian with the multiplex scrolls and leaf-curves 



bowls of nnturc's providing, nlrcady on the same stone, (sec p. 345) were there to serve the 

 night's use. Moreover, the Devil's name (however appropriate to the occasion the teeto- 

 taller may think it). Is generally, If not always, associated with objects of real anUquity. 

 Is It not probable that the jovial Mr. Vaughan, tickled by the punch Iwwl's destgnRtion, 

 simply adapted it to his purpose (its rhn shews signs of 'neffectual tampering), and that 

 the writer of llie record had no interest in ascertaiuing the exact colour of the truth ? In 

 this belief, which may have liccn Iludgson's, I allow tlio text ami tlic following note to 

 stand as they are. 



I cannot claim any acquaintance with "the mysteries of the Druiilical IIu," but the 

 following passage so nearly describes the use I can imagine for this possible rock altar 

 ot Shaftoe Crags, with an allowance for difference of climate, that I quote It. "The 

 Bonthals of Central Hindustan worship a conspicuous hill called Marang Haroo.' In 

 times of <lrought they go to the top of this sacred mountain and offer their Facriflccs on a 

 large flat stone, plaj Ing their drum and beseeching tlieir god for rain." Colonel Dalfc 

 quoted In Lubbock's " Origin of Civilization," p. 224. To Indra, the roln gotl, beloui^^vi 

 all libations; and what'placo could lie more suited for Invocations to him or any other 

 than where ho might be lliougbt to shed his own libations Into his own sacred rock-bowls. 

 What wcnes may this stone have witnessed! Libations of milk were until lately pound 

 in honour of the sun on the gnialch stones of Skye. Hut did the Britons limit thcmsehci 

 to milk? 



• "Doing things In circles »unwlso. Is almost universal in the north." J. F. Camp- 

 bell, West Highland Tales. 



