127 



in a slanting direction, being indeterminate in number. Human re- 

 mains, and urns with ashes and fragments of bones, have been so fre- 

 quently found beneath the area of those monuments, that the opinion in 

 all countries where they exist seems to be well established that they were 

 used for sepulchral purposes, though not exclusively for them. The 

 author of the ''Mona Antiqua Eestaurata" observes, that cromlechs, 

 although perhaps often connected with the commemoration of the dis- 

 tinguished dead, were not themselves solely intended as sepulchres, but 

 rather, in such instances, for altars of oblation and sacrifice, in conjunc- 

 tion with the former purpose. 



In support of his opinion, he might have referred to observations on 

 Druidical rites of ancient writers of great note. Tacitus, describing an 

 attack of the Romans upon Mona, says that the British Druids held it 

 right to smear their altars with the blood of their captives, and to con- 

 sult the will of the gods by the quivering of human flesh." 



Diodorus, speaking of the Druids of Gaul, says: — ''Pouring out a 

 libation upon a man as a victim, they smite him with a sword upon the 

 breast, in the part near the diaphragm ; and on his falling who has been 

 thus smitten, both from the manner of his falling, and from the convul- 

 sions of his limbs, and still more from the manner of the flowing of his 

 blood, they presage what will come to pass." 



King, the British archaeologist, in his observations on the uses of 

 cromlechs, and in particular of those of the cromlech called Kit's 

 Coty House, maintains that these monuments were erected for the pur- 

 pose of human sacrifice; that the great stone scaffold was raised just 

 high enough for such a purpose, and no higher ; and that these altars 

 were so constructed and situated as to enable a multitude of people to 

 see any sacrificial rite performed on them. 



In regard, moreover, to cromlechs of very large dimensions, of which 

 many specimens are to be seen in Ireland, as well as in Cornwall, Mr. 

 King offers a remark, which is ingenious, if not entirely satisfactory. 

 Prom the conspicuous site in which such fabrics are usually placed, and 

 from the readiness with which the flow of blood might be traced on a 

 slab of stone, large and sloping as is the covering stone of these crom- 

 lechs, he supposes that they were the altars on which human victims 

 were sacrificed in attempts at divination. If Mr. King referred to 

 some rare instances of cromlechs in which some traces are to be seen 

 (apparently) of grooved channels in their horizontal covering stone in its 

 longest direction, his observation would be less likely to be disputed. 



Tio such grooved channel, I may observe, exists in any of those crom- 

 lechs visited by me in T^orthern Africa. 



In confirmation of some of the views expressed in preceding obser- 

 vations, reference is made by Rowlands, Wright, and King, to the passage 

 in the 24th chap., 26th verse, of the Book of Joshua in relation to the 

 covenant made with the people of Shechem : — '' And Joshua wrote these 

 words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone and set it up 

 there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord." 



In the Book of Ezekiel, vi. 13, we find still more striking allusions 



