78 



Tlie Antiquities of the 



[No. 3^, 



climate and altitude the steppes of their own country, than any other 

 in India, and in which their posterity may have since continued, or 

 the Thautawars of Scythian descent, were the aborigines of the plains 

 prior to the Hindoo invasion before which they fled to the mountains. 



In the sequel I shall produce strong and numerous proofs to this 

 hypothesis of their descent, until when I request the impartial and 

 critical reader to suspend his judgment ; confident that I shall be 

 able to establish satisfactorily the fact that a relationship subsisted 

 between the Thautawars and the Scythians of Europe and Asia. 



In opening the subject, I request the reader's attention to the 

 Thautawar Tumuli and Cairns, which are scattered in different places 

 over the surface of the Hills. 



Some of these consist of a circular wall four or five feet high and 

 three feet thick, made of unhewn stones piled loosely upon each other, 

 and forming a circle about eight feet in diameter. 



In addition to these I have observed double rings of stones one 

 Avithin the other, of different dimensions. 



One of these antiquities has powerfully arrested my attention, and 

 I intend shortly to open it. 



These rings are precisely similar to those of the Scythians ; the 

 best and most convenient examples of which I can select, are the 

 ones which belonged to the Britons or Celtic Scythians, and to the 

 Danes or Scandinavian Scythians, found in our own country. 



Our great historian Camden, in his Britannia, mentions a famous 

 monument in Denbighshire of a circle of great stones. In Mont- 

 gomeryshire he likewise tells us there is a high mountain called 

 Corudon, on whic^l a famous monument of great stones stands 

 circularly. At Biscawaum in Cornwall are 21 great stones in a circle. 



From the same authority I learn that at Hocksnorton in Oxford- 

 shire, 36 stones called the Rollrich stones are arranged in a circle. 



Stonehenge on Salisbury plain consists of a double ring of stones. 

 On Sevenbarrow's Hill, four miles west of Blarlebarrow (Marlborough) 

 are 40 stones lying in a large circle enclosing an inner circle of 16 

 stones, near the Sevenbarrows : and at Stanton, six miles south of 

 Bristol, 8 stones used to stand in a ring. 



But if a degree of interest has been excited by the foregoing com- 

 parisons of the cemeteries of the Thautawars and Scythians, it will 

 be surpassed when we investigate their respective contents. 



Mr. Hough, in liis " Letters on the Neilgherries," says "♦a few of 

 " them have been opened. In one were found several iron heads of 



