The record-union., 1893-01-21

4 SOUND OF the old abbey bell from mile
away at Melrose disturbs the wondrous
quiet OF the place. All doors arc open to
all III Scotland, and you peer into tins
cottage and that. The incarnation of
sweetness and cleanliness, but no human
| IS beheld. Here is an old Schoolhouse
deserted and silent. An orchard was its
play ground, but few sheep are grazing
among its tender grasses now.
UnconsciouslY you have begun to tip
toe through the hamlet, for it seems as
though even football might break the
spell OF silence and repose. and you pass
On TO reach the rough, red road that leads
to the primeval forest beyond. But no,
here Is such a quaint old cottage that you
halt again. Something like an arched
front, from which rises huge chimney,
arrests your attention. on either side OF
the chimney IS tiny plane OF glass. \ GU
peep into one and see the oldest ingle-
nook in all Scotland. A huge arch, sus-
tanning the bowed wall of the cottageand
the chimney above, incloses a cavernous
fireplace. At each side of this settle ol
| stone IS built in the bow beneath the
arch. The panes Of glass are little out
looks from this pleasant fortilace Of
snuggery.
Opposite to the one into which you are
peerlng an old, old woman is asleep. She
has been knitting ana looking and dream
ing out through the apple boughS across
as white as her white old ''mutch" cap.
She had knit to the middle OF her needle
and then fallen asleep. But her thin Old
hands hold the needles upright aud
clenched as though duty lasted beyond
| consciousness, and the cat has come to
| the opposite settle to stare at the silent
! lace, as if doubtful of the meaning when
the clicking needles stopped. This is the
| only soul you have found in Gattonside
among the apple orchards and their sun
shine by the Tweed.
Savans dig and peck away for remnants
OF the cast-oh shells Of lost races and ages
in all the lands fringing the Mediterra-
mean. y ct at Carnac, III The very Brit
tany of Brittany, and at the very thresh-
old OF Europe, are imperishable remains
OF the activities of people, and time 50
remote that arch@ologlsts are dumb in
the presence of what no learning has yet
been able to interpret and reveal. l think
the study of rude stone monuments and
| these silent, aWe-insplrlng reminders of
| the past grows on one with strange and
increasing fascination.
on entering Brittany one is all impa-
tience TO first see the vast fields OF pillar
stones the ancient Celts have here raised,
in some lneXplicable way, for some mex
plicable purpose, and have consciousness,
Tor himself, of the kinship of those pre-
historic races that have left such mighty
monuments to pagan mySucisms upon
almost every square rood of these west
ernmost European LANDS.
The plains of Carnac would be inde-
scribably dreary were these thousands Of
stone monuments not standing upon
| them. But underneath WIntry skies,
whipped and beaten by storms of wind
and sleet, and ghostly as a vast grave
yard with these monumental stones, the
belief that pagan races sought the Saddest
on RI j i
the burial of their dead is given startling
emphasis here.
A vast tumuIUs, or mound Of stones,
once pagan burial place, about 100 feet
IN hight, and now surmOunted by q
chapel and calvary, dedicated to st. Mi
chael to which pilgrlmages are made,
stands almost in the center of the desoIate
eXpanse. This is called Mont St. Mi
chael. From its top the entire plains of
Carnac may be seen, with their countless
| pillar stones, peulVenS or menhirs, and
many grimmer and vaster cromlechs or
dolmens.
AS is well-known the former are be-
lieved to be stone monuments to pagan
dead. They vary from six to eighteen
feet in hight above the soil. Hundreds
/ upon hundreds have fallen and are partly
/ covered with furZe and brambles. Count
! less thousands We're DESTROYED by the
efforts of Charlemange, and, later, under
a canon OF the Council OF Nantes, espe-
cially enacted to effect the destruction Of
pagan monuments. Old chroniclers as
sert that over 10000 stood on these fields
before that time. If, as some assert, each
menhir or stone served as memorial Of
the death of members by Druidic sac
rihce, what an awful oIden slaughter
pen one stands upon at Carnac.
Here and there within sight of Mont
st. Michael are many huge and still more
weirdly suggestive Golmens, the exact
prototypes of Isl | have personally in-
spected of the 2Z6 cromlechs known to
exist in Ireland. These consist Of up-
right stones held in their vertical posi-
ton by horizontal slabs of immense pro-
portions. At Carnac some are from ten
to fifteen feet in hight with Gaping
stones of from twelve to twenty feet in
length, and from two to four feet in
thickness. But two miles from Carnac
near the village of Plouharnel are sew
eral immense dolmens, one, covered by
by three tremendous stones, nearly fifty
feet long. These dolmens are thought
to have been the raised places where
Druidic sacrifices took place before as
sembled thousands, ana the chambers
within the burial places Of the victims
II is certain they were pagan burial
places, for there have been recovered
from every one half-burned bones of
human beings, cinnerary urns stone
namentS.
The pillar stones, still standing upon
Carnac fields, are seen principally clus-
tered in three distinct ranges or avenues.
and all are to the north and northeast of
the village. The most eastern grouping
: is known as Kerlescant. The central ana
smallest grouping is called kermario.
and the western and largest field IS gen
rically named the Stones of Carnac At
first each OF these seems to be confused
mass, but as the eye becomes familiar
long and sinuous avenues are distinctly
traced, and the curious fact will impress
the keen observer that in all three OF
these vast collections of pillar stones the
lines and avenues, from eight to eleven
in each still being easily followed. con
verge rapidly as their eastern termihi are
approached, the theory, as held by some
archseOiogists, being that the three great
series still visible, and perhaps hundreds
of others effaced within the 1900 or 4. .0JO
years since they werei erected, all once
led TO the most sacred and eastern point
at LOcmariker, some fifteen miles dis
tant, where there is still to be seen a
fallen and broken, but tremendous, mon
ollth, which, as the loftiest member, or
long stone of the sum-" stood above the
guave OF the greatest Celtic chiettain
All this, however, is theory. But it is
not theory that you stand among the
most impressive monuments of prehis-
toric days. 70 the south are the brown
roof-peaks of Carnac. Beyond, the steely-
blue sea and the far reaching land arm oi
Quiberon, From the northeast around
by Auray, far around the southern ont
look to the northwest, is savage moor
/ f-5ra tl,s,yr I,