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locality of which is named Bainen. He conducted us to an eminence 

 not far distant from the house, situated on a table-land about 650 feet 

 above the level of the sea (the neighbouring town of Cheragas is 198 

 metres, or about 616 feet, above the sea). There, to my great astonish- 

 ment, I found thirteen cromlechs, in all important respects identical with 

 our Irish monuments of that name, within an area certainly not ex- 

 tending above a quarter of a mile in any direction ; and within a range 

 of about double that distance, I discovered the remains of twenty of those 

 monuments recently demolished or partially destroyed ; and in a wider 

 range of view that the proprietor pointed out to me, clearly defined, and 

 within the limits of his own lands, he showed me the several localities 

 where upwards of one hundred and eighty more of these Dolmens, as he 

 alleged, were in existence when he took possession of the land, but 

 where they exist no more ; for with the sanction of the government, and 

 as it was stipulated in the terms of the concession obtained by him, he 

 was alloioed by the authorities to demolish all these monuments^ and to ap- 

 propriate the materials to huilding purposes, and the making and repairing 

 of paths and roads, with the exception of thirteen. The latter number, he 

 said, the authorities obliged him to leave on the ground and to preserve. 

 So much for the march of civilization in a French colony, and the mili- 

 tary administration of a country recently rescued from a regime of bar- 

 barism. 



The existing monuments (Dolmens as they are termed) are generally 

 in a direction (though not exactly so) north and south, the apex or up- 

 lifted end that tapers towards a point, in most of them, being to the 

 south or south-east. The covering slab of unhewn rock rests in a slant- 

 ing direction on supporters likewise of un wrought stone of various num- 

 bers, set up on their edge. The inclination of the covering slab varies 

 considerably, but it is quite obvious in all. There were no appearances 

 of grooved channels on the face of any of them ; round one, the remains 

 were still distinguishable of a circle of upright stones. The proprietor 

 of the ground informed me there were several of those circles of stone ; 

 but they had been broken down and removed by him, along with the Dol- 

 mens they surrounded, when he cleared the land. 



On the surface of the ground, within the space covered by the great 

 slanting mass of superincumbent stone, in several of these monuments 

 there are fragments of human bones, and evidences in the soil of exca- 

 vations having been recently madd there. The present proprietor in- 

 formed me he had excavated several, and found urns of various sizes of 

 baked clay, some containing fragments of bone, others ashes and small 

 pieces of bones mixed with clay. He had found in them also beads and 

 bracelets, several implements of bronze, but of the nature of these it was 

 impossible to get any intelligible or reliable account. He had sent these 

 objects, he said, and the urns found with them, to a friend in Algiers, 

 to deposit in the Museum, but they had never reached their destination 

 there. He possessed, at the time of my visit, only one small urn, which he 

 had recently found in one of the demolished Dolmens ; and this, with 



