115 
I see no reason to doubt that the Druidical religion and its 
sanguinary cultus were in full force in England when the ten 
tribes of Israel were carried captive into Assyria. The co- 
existence of human sacrifice with a rather high degree of 
civilization need not be incredible to those who study the 
great advance of the Mexicans, even in astronomical science. 
These Aztecs had so far perfected their researches in this 
direction that they even surpassed their Spanish conquerors 
in accuracy of computation of the length of the year, and had 
the method of observing the transit of stars from deep wells, 
constructed for the purpose, as Mr. Proctor and others suppose 
to have been the use of passages in the Great Pyramid. 
Certain points of coincidence between the doctrines of the 
Druids and Buddhism are mentioned by Hardy,* and these 
must have arisen at a date much earlier than any we have 
been considering. As to Pythagoras, it is clearly a matter of 
history that he was intimate with Abaris, a celebrated Druid, 
who came to him from the land of the Hyperboreans. The great 
resemblance with the Magian religion, which I can only refer 
to, also seems to indicate a point of connection before the 
Cymry left their aboriginal quarters. 
Unless we are willing to concede a considerable amount of 
philosophic cultivation to the framers of the language of the 
primitive Welsh, we shall find ourselves wholly at a loss to 
account for its structure. In like manner, unless we concede 
that the structures at Avebury and Stonehenge were really 
temples, we shall be wholly at a loss to conceive what could 
induce any body of people to rear structures of such vast 
extent, “the effect of which,” as Mr. Fergusson observes (p. 96), 
“ is immensely enhanced by the monolithic simplicity of the 
whole.” No style of architecture can possibly be conceived 
more suited to the gloomy and austere rites of Pantheism 
than the circular temples and groves of these nations. 
The Welsh derive their migrations apparently from Thrace, 
and it is there, amongst the old Pelasgi, themselves wanderers 
from the realms of the East, that we find corresponding rites 
of worship. 
We have positive testimony in Pausanias,t that the mys- 
terious rites of Demeter were performed at Hermione, within 
circles of stones called Logades.% 
Demeter is the same with Ceridwen. Hermione was an 
ancient city of the Dryojpes ,§ one of the aboriginal tribes of 
* Manual of Buddhism , pp. 27, 34. 
X Gomer, p. 173. 
t Lib. ii., cap. 54. 
§ Query from 'dpv-o^. 
