598 Account of the Antiquities of Carnac. 
number rife to the height of fixteen, eigh- 
tven, or more feet. 
The rows ftretch along an uneven {pace 
of ground, for a couple a Englifh miles, 
and are confiderably elevated above the 
fea, although lower than the country be- 
hind, commanding an extenfive prof{pest 
from Port L’Orient on the weit of Quibe- 
ron, Belleifle, and other iflands, to the 
mouth of the Loire on the eaft. The foil 
3s, in general, fo rocky, that the ftones 
were, in all probability, found at no great 
diftance from their preient fituations.— 
Several of them are now fallen from their 
erect pofition, and many have been carried 
away by the neighbouring inhabitants for 
the purpofes of building 3 and the fhorter 
fiones may perhaps have been reduced to 
their prefent difproportionateize by fimi- 
jar caufes. Advantage has alfo been 
taken, in many places, of the largeft 
fiones on end, by attaching the corners of 
houfes, sriputanlis: &c. to > them, by that 
method to be fapported againtt the boif- 
terous gales, which, traverfing the Atlan- 
tic Ocean, often blaw with irrefiftible’fu- 
ry on that part of France. 
The name by which that fmgular‘an- 
tique is known in the country, is the 
Camp de Carnac, and frequently Camp de 
Céfar, although there be no vettiges of 
Fe AL or other fortification, to 
be feen near it; nor would the pofition 
have, in antient times, been efteemed 
itrong. But hiftory, and even tradition, 
being ; abfolutely filent as to the caufe, the 
cbject; or the era of the erection of the 
rows, a notion has been propagated, that 
they were fet up by Julius Cefar, during 
his expedition againft the Veneti, for the 
fupport of the tents of his army. To be 
convinced of the improbability of fuch a 
{uppofition, without entering into confi- 
deration of the nature of the monument 
itfelf, the reader has only to confult the 
third book De Bello Gallico ; as weilas on 
the whole of the memorable attack on the 
Veneti, whofe capital, I am fatisfied, 
from the locality, as defcribed by Czelar, 
and other circumftances, and from fundry 
remains of Roman architecture in the 
town and high-ways leading towards it, 
mut have been iituated where Vannes * 
now ftands. 
Towards the middle of the length of 
the Camp de Carnac, and alittle nearer to 
ike fca, on a rifing ground, is a barrow 
* Vannes is called by the natives, in their 
dialeét of the Celtic, Guénned, pronounced 
Wenet, from which, no doubt, the Romans 
formed their Venetia and Veneti. The word 
is derived from gucn, white; but fer what 
zeaivn is unknown, 
[Dec. 1, 
of uncommon fize, compofed feemingly 
altogether of {mall ftones collected from 
the {urrounding grounds: the fummit has 
been levelled long ago, and on it is a 
chapel, or {mall church, dedicated to St. 
Michael, with a little ‘plain {pace at its 
weit end: and Carnac itfelf feems to have 
owed both its fituation and its name to 
another large barrow of the fame kind.* 
I have {aid that the Camp de Carnac is 
a fingular monument, and {uch I really 
confider it to be ; although fome years 
ago I learned that at Ardeven, a place 
with evidently a Celtic name, five or fix 
miles weft from Carnac, there is a fmall 
colleétion of rude ftones, fimilar, and fimi-~ 
larly fituated, to thofe I have juft tried to 
defcribe. 
As Brétagne, antiently a part of Ar- 
morica, + was the principal feat of the 
Druids ef Gaul, it is no wonder that that 
country fhould now prefent us with a 
multitude of remains of their ufages, fimi- 
lar to what we obferve in Cornwall, 
Wales, and Scotland. The Celtic lan- 
guage is ftill univerfaily fpoken, although 
with many local variations, under the 
name of Bréton, in all that part of the 
province lying to thé weftward of a line 
beginning at St. Brieux, a fea-port en 
the Englith Channel, thirty miles weft 
from St. Malo, and running foutherly to 
the mouth of the river Vilaine, twenty 
miles ealt from Vannes: fo that many 
ftories are told in that diftriét, of Welfh- 
men, Irifhmen, and. Scotch Higislanders, 
whole native dialeéts are all defcended 
from the original Celtic, and who, whiltt 
prifoners of war, have experienced equal 
furorize and advantage, from the facility 
with which they and the inhabitants of 
Lower Brétagne could interchange their 
thoughts. 
With refpeét to the other Druidical or 
Celtic antiquities extant in Brétagne, I 
fhall only, with your good leave Mr. 
Editor, hint what follows. 
Ata place called Locmariaker,t fitu- 
ated 
* Carn, a cairn or barrow, and ac, a habi- 
tation—an addition to the names of places, 
very common in Querey, and other parts of, 
France far removed from Brétagne. 
+ Armorica, from the Celtic ar, near, and 
90s the fea, with ic, a dwelling ; i.e. thofe 
who dwell on or near the fea. It is curious 
that this name is ftill applied, but with a 
flight alteration, by the Frenchy to the pec= 
ple who live round the bay of f Vannes ; 3; thus, 
Arvoricains. 
t Locmariaker is formed of Joc, a places 
and by excellence, a church, Maria, the 
Virgin 
