on the Marlborough Downs. 



61 



the eastern declivity of Martinsell : these pits, which are now, 

 through the effect of weather in a long course of ages, little more 

 than depressions in the turf, are of more regular form and plan, 

 ranged somewhat in order, and having lines of communication be- 

 tween them. It is generally supposed that these pit-dwellings were 

 protected from wind and rain by some sort of covering, whether of 

 thatch or of skins, after the manner of modern Troglodytes in bar- 

 barous countries; but in truth very little is accurately known in 

 regard to the habitations of the early Britons. Other examples of 

 these pit-dwellings may be seen on the Marlborough Downs, on the 

 sides of the hills above Calstone, on Hackpen Hill overhanging 

 Abury, on the southern slopes of Tan Hill, and on many other 

 similar slopes, for in the time of the Britons the downs were the 

 inhabited portions of the country, while the valleys were either 

 covered with forest, or were little better than morasses and swamps. 

 (4) Of the " Barrows " which stud our downs in such profusion 

 ji it is unnecessary for me to say much ; but I will remind those who 

 are not so familiar with them that these burial places of the early 

 Britons are by no means of one uniform pattern, but differ from one 

 another in shape as well as in size, and it is worth while to point 

 out not only the great variety of form which these tumuli take, but 

 the remarkable elegance of shape and regularity of construction 

 which characterize so many of them ; an elegance and a regularity 

 which I make bold to assert would be imitated by our skilled work- 

 men of the present day with the greatest difficulty, if indeed they 

 could be reproduced at all : moreover many of them retain to this 

 day the perfect symmetry of their original construction. Admirable 

 examples of all the various forms of barrows occur on the downs 

 between Marlborough and Shepherd's Shore, more especially in two 

 groups which lie in the plain below Oldbury Camp, where perfect 

 specimens may be seen of the round, the cone-shaped, the bowl-shaped, 

 the elegant ^//-shaped with the swelling lip, the pond (or Re- 

 shaped), the oval-, and each containing ; either beneath the original 

 surface, the hist or grave in the chalk, in which was deposited the 

 body of the dead ; or else an urn containing the ashes and burnt 

 bones which were collected after cremation of the body. Quite 



