1864.] 



The Pillar Towers of the British Islands. 



567 



door about eight feet from the base, in which three men were concealed. 

 They suffered the column, and some of the baggage to pass, and 

 then opened their fire. Fortunately a guard over some stores was 

 passing at the time, and four men were sent up to the Tower, which 

 appeared to have no floor ; for they placed a musket inside, pointed 

 upwards, and brought down one of the assailants the first shot. Fear- 

 ing the others might escape, a fire was kindled in the doorway below, 

 which filled the inside of the tower with smoke, and soon obliged 

 the other two to descend; one was killed close to the door, and 

 the other was shot in attempting to escape.*" So well suited are 

 these towers for defence, that the Block-houses, which were erected 

 during the late rebellion in Canada, (1838 and 1839) were upon 

 the same principle — modified so as to be 

 constructed of the materials of the country. 

 In Canada the retreat was supported upon 

 logs of wood, so as to raise the house 8 

 or 12 feet above the ground. The only 

 entrance was by means of a ladder, which 

 was then drawn up and the trap door 

 closed ; and the floor and walls being loop- 

 holed, any one approaching was exposed to musketry. 



The Buddhist missionaries changed their symbolical Pillars (lats) to 

 hollow cylinders or Pillar Towers, to protect their persons and the pre- 

 cious relics which they carried with them to distant countries, and 

 valued so highly. The remains of some of these are still to be found 

 in different parts of Hindostan. Tennent states that the pagodas of 

 Blyars, of the Circars, are chiefly buildings of a cylindrical or ' Bound 

 Tower', shape ; with their tops either pointed, or truncated at the sum- 

 mit, which frequently bears a round ball on a spike, to represent the 

 sun.f Hanway, in his travels in Persia, states that there are four 

 round temples of the Guebres, or worshippers of fire, " about thirty 

 feet in diameter, and about 120 feet in height. J 



The sacred nature of these Pillar Towers in Buddhist countries ex- 

 plains why they are sometimes delineated upon coins, with other sacred 

 objects ; as in the accompanying drawing, in which the " Tower of 

 Deliverance" and the sacred tree are both represented as springing out 



# Narrative of Services, p. 205. 



t View of Hindostan, vol. II. p. 123, or vol. VL p. 133. 



X Ibid, p. 137. 



