1847.] 



Neilgherry Hills ^ ^c. 



97 



hill along the side of which it is carried, and in the valley at the 

 base. 



Ascending the hill at the point where the wood comnnences, I 

 shortly found myself amidst mounds and excavations. A sedulous 

 examination and careful study of them soon convinced me that I stood 

 on the site of an ancient fortified position. My attention was first 

 arrested by a nearly circular mound, seated on the crest of a pro- 

 montory of the hill ; the slope descending from this point towards the 

 east is embraced by two long lines of parapet, concentric with the 

 circular fort at the top, one being above the other. While the rampart 

 of the fort has been built of earth, these lines have been obviously 

 formed by excavation, terrepleins being cut in the side of the hill, so 

 as to leave breast-works projecting out of it. This kind of fortress 

 is the most ancient we have any knowledge of : Old-Sarum near 

 Stonehenge is the best instance of the kind I have seen. This 

 place presents the appearance of several circular grass grown 

 mounds, one within and higher than the other, the centremost and 

 highest having been the citadel. The spaces between the circular 

 ramparts are supposed to have been occupied by separate districts of 

 the city. Old-Sarum was the ancient Sorhiodunum^ a place of great 

 note in the time of our early Saxon kings, and a capital of the 

 Ancient-Britons (Celtic Scythians) before the Roman invasion. 



The ruined fortress at Fair-Lawn suggests a comparison with 

 CoerLeb in Anglesea, a moated intrenchment supposed to have been 

 the residence of the Arch-Druid and which was of a square form 

 with a double rampart^^nd broad ditch intervening, and a lesser one 

 on the outside, having within foundations of circular and square 

 buildings. 



Two hundred and fifty yards beyond the mounds at Fair-Lawn 

 above described, at a point where the hill turns to the North-west, 

 I reached more ruins of a similar description, somewhat less clearly 

 defined. Beneath this point lies the south margin of the wood, 

 through it a footpath conducts to the lawn which gently descends 

 upon a stream meandering through ravines and hanging woods. 

 On the North side of the clearing, an ancient circular wall of unce- 

 mented stones encloses a space occupied hy single and double rings of 

 stones and heajps. Below this place again may he seen another old 

 wall of a circular form^ overgrown with jungle, the space within be- 

 ing full of trees. Facing the latter and on the ofposite side (f the 

 stream, I observed a mass ofroch projecting out of the side of^^ Cne 



N 



