and earth running along the margin of the fteep, in many places I
entire : in others, time or accident hath rendered it lefs vifible, ot I
hath totally deftroyed it. The ftones were not found on the fpot; I
but were brought from a plac.e two miles diftant, where quarries I
of' the fame kind are ftill in uie'.
Another dike crofles the ground, from margin to. margin, in the I
place it begins to grow narrow. This feems intended as the firft I
defence againft an enemy, ihould the inhabitants fail in defending I
their outworks, and be obliged to quit their ftation and retire to a I
ftronger part. Near the extremity is what I ihould . name their I
citadel; for a fmall portion of the end is cut off from the reft by I
five great dikes, and as many deep foffes; and within that is the I
llrong hold, impregnable againft the neighboring nations.
This place had alfo another fecurity which time hath diverted !
from them : the river Tiry once entirely environed the place, and!
formed it into an iiland, as the name in the antient language,!
which it ftill retains, imports ; that of lnch-Jiuthel, or the ifle of
Tuthel. The river at prefent runs on one fide only : but there are I
plain marks on the north in particular, not only of a channel, but!
of fome pieces of water, oblong, narrow, and pointing in the di-1
rection the Tay had taken, before it had ceafed to infulate this piece I
of ground. I cannot afcertain the’period when its waters confined I
themfelves to one bedbut am informed that a grant ftill exifts I
from one of the James’s of a right of fiihing in the river, at Caput I
mac Athol., eaft of the place.
It is not to be imagined that there can be any traces of the ha-1
bitations of a people who dwelt in the moil perilhable hovels : but I
as the moll barbarous nations paid more attention to the remains I
' of
• of the dead, than to the conveniency of the living, they formed,
■ either for the proteilion of the reliques of their chieftains from in-
»fults of man, or favage beaft, or for fepulchral memorials, mounts
■of different lizes. Antient Greece and antient Lathim concurred in
■ the fame practice with the natives of this iiland. Patrochs among
; the Greeks, and Hettor among the trojans, received but the fame
«funeral honors with our Caledonian heroes, and the aihes of Der-
i cennus* the Laurentine monarch had the the fame fimple proteilion.
■ The urn and pall of the 'Trojan warrior might perhaps-be more
fuperb than thofe of a Britijh leader : the rifing monument of each
. had the common materials from our mother earth-.
T h e fnowy Bones his Friends and Brothers p lac e,
With tears colle&ed, in a golden vafe.
T h e golden vafe in purple palls they rolled
O f fofteft texture and inwrought with gold.
Laft o ’er the urn the facred earth they Ip,read*
A nd rais’d a tomb., memorial o f the d e a d f -
; i or’ as it is more ftrongly expreffed by the fame elegant tranilator, ire
§ the account of the funeral of Patrochs;
High in th e midlt they heap the fwelling bed
O f riling earth, memorial o f the dead I .
Monuments of this kind are very frequent over the face of this
Splain: the Tumuli are round, not greatly elevated, and at their
»balls furrounded with a fols. Many bones have been found in
* aTndd. lib. XI. lin. 849. + Pope's Homer's.Ilia d , book X X IV . line io o j .
I The fame, Book XXIII. line 319.
fome