The history and antiquities of Roxburghshire and adjacent districts, from the most remote period to the present time Volume 1 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ...and rise through the branches of a huge old tree to the heightof twenty-seven feet. A cromlech at the village of Lailang-kot, elevated five feet from the earth, measures thirty-two feet by fifteen, and two feet thick at the edge. Near this village is a field covered with these upright monuments, as thickly as the churchyard of a populous European village. Kistvaens of four large slabs, resting on their edges, and roofed by a fifth, placed horizontally, are found in many places. In the valley of Mausmai, deep in the forest, is a great collection of large slabs, accurately circular, resting on the tops of many little rough pillars planted close together, through whose chinks may be discerned earthen pots or urns containing ashes of the family. Simple cairns of twenty feet are also to be seen. Mr Yule says, that the upright pillars are cenotaphs, and if the people are asked why their fathers erected them, the universal answer is, " To preserve their name." Yet to few, indeed, among the thousands, can they attach any name. Many of the villages derive their appellations from such erections, as may be judged from the number commencing with the syllable Mao, which signifies a stone; i. e., Mao-sami, the stone of the oath, fec. The oath-stone suggests that these pillars were erected in memoryof notable compacts. On asking an intelligent native the origin of the name, his answer was a striking illustration of many passages in the Old Testament. "There was war," said he, " between two of the villages, and when they made peace, and swore to it, they erected a stone fur a witness;" Genesis xxxi. 45-48. In Bell's Cireassia is a drawing of an ancient monument existing in that country, which is an exact representation of a thousand such in th...