120 
INSCRIPTIONS IN THE ROCK OF ELWUND. 
lower ravines of the mountain; and are here quite as harmless 
as their cattle. I saw several of their little sable encampments 
spread under the shadow of some huge over-hanging cliff, beet¬ 
ling terribly from the brow of the uneven steep. We journeyed 
on, through an intricate succession of these mountain-vales for 
full five miles, ere we found the object of my day’s excursion ; 
which, at last, I descried at the hither extremity of a sloping 
ravine that branched westward. Near the spot, rises the prin¬ 
cipal source of the rapid stream which had been our companion 
so much of the way : indeed, it might, hereafter, be considered 
the clew to the labyrinth ; for, about fifty feet above the water, 
projecting from the sloping side of the acclivity, appears the 
mysterious stone. It consists of an immense block of red granite, 
of the closest and finest texture I ever saw, and, apparently, of 
many thousand tons weight. At full ten feet from the ground, 
two square excavations appear in the face of the stone, cut to the 
depth of a foot, about five in breadth, and much the same in 
height. Each of these imperishable tablets contains three 
columns of engraved arrow-headed writing, in the most excellent 
preservation. 
The day was now nearly spent, and the arduous task of ac¬ 
curately copying them could not then be undertaken ; I therefore 
was obliged to content myself with making a sketch only of the 
general appearance of the whole, leaving to some other traveller 
the gratifying labour of transmitting so valuable a document of 
antiquity to the future investigation of the learned. That these 
tablets in the rock have been objects of great care to preserve, 
is manifest, from several deep holes in the stone, close to the 
edge of the excavations, shewing where iron fastenings have 
been inserted to secure crossed bars, or some other shield from 
