large stones, six or seven feet wide, and a kind of granite. These excavations have been found in various parishes of Aberdeenshire, as well as in several of the neighbouring counties. In the parish of Old Deer, some sixty years back, a whole village was met with; and, about the same time, in a glen at the back of Stirlinghill, in the parish of Peterhead, one was discovered which contained some fragments of bones and several flint arrow-heads and battle-axes, in various stages of manufacture. Such buildings underground as those described as Picts' houses were not uncommon on the borders of the Tweed. A number of them, apparently constructed as above, were discovered in a field in Berwickshire about fifty years ago. They were supposed to have been made for the detention of prisoners taken in the frays during the border feuds; and afterwards they were employed to conceal spirits, smuggled either across the border or from abroad.

Professor Phillips, in his very able volume on Yorkshire, describes the houses of the Brigantes (highlanders), inhabitants of the hilly country towards the north of Britain, and extending from the German Ocean to the Irish Sea. Of these huts there appear to be three varieties, of which we have only the foundations. The first occurs in north-eastern and south-eastern Yorkshire; the ground is excavated in a circular shape, so as to make a pit from six to eight feet, or even sixteen or eighteen feet in diameter, with a raised border, and three to five feet in depth. Over this cavity we must suppose the branches of trees placed to form a conical roof, which, perhaps, might be made weather-proof by wattling, a covering of rushes, or turf. The opening we may believe to have been placed on the side removed from the prevalent wind: fire in the centre of the hut thus constructed, has left traces in many of the houses examined. The pits in Westerdale are called "ref-holes," i.e. roof-holes, for our Saxon word roof has the meaning of the Icelandic raf and Swedish ref. In several places these pits are associated in such considerable numbers as to give the idea of a village, or even town. On Danby Moor, the pits are divided in two parallel lines, bounded externally by banks, and divided internally by an open space like a street; a stream divides the settlement into two parts; there are no walls at the end of the streets; in the most westerly part is a circular walled space, thirty-five feet in diameter.

"A second type of these foundations of huts has been observed south of the village of Skipwith, near Riccall, south-east of York. These were oval or circular rings slightly excavated in the heathy surface, on the drier parts of the common. On digging into this area, marks of fire were found: they were concluded to be the foundation-lines of huts, mostly enclosed by single or double mounds or ditches.

"The third form of hut foundation, an incomplete ring of stone walls, has only yet been observed in Yorkshire, on the summit of Ingleborough. How strange to find at this commanding height," says Professor Phillips, "encircled by a thick and strong wall, and within this wall the unmistakeable foundations of ancient habitations! The Rev. Robert Cooke, in 1851, concluded Ingleborough to be a great hill-fort of the Britons, defended by a wall like others known in Wales, and furnished with houses like the 'Cittian,' of Gwynedd. The area inclosed is about 15 acres, in which space are nineteen horse-shoe-shaped low foundations, evidently the foundations of ancient huts, the antecedent of the cottages of England,—a low wall foundation, a roof formed by inclined rafters, and covered by boughs, heath, rushes, grass, straw, or sods. The relative dates, surely, admit of no doubt. The huts and walls of Ingleborough exhibit principles of construction which remove them from the catalogue of barbarian works."[3]

The Britons, before the first Roman invasion, slept on skins spread on the floor of their rude dwellings. Rushes and heath were afterwards substituted by the Romans for skins; and on the introduction of agriculture they slept upon straw, which, indeed, was used as a couch in the royal chambers of England at the close of the 14th century.

BRITAIN BEFORE THE ROMAN COLONIZATION.

itherto we have but glanced at the dwelling-places of our ancestors, chiefly from existing evidences. Of the general condition of the people before the Roman Conquest, we find this picturesque account in Lappenberg's able work on the Anglo-Saxon Kings. The earliest inhabitants of Britain, as far as we know, were probably of that great family, the main branches of which, distinguished by the designation of Celts, spread themselves so widely over middle and western Europe. They crossed over from the neighbouring country of Gaul. At a later period, the Belgæ, actuated by martial restlessness or the love of plunder, assailed the southern and western coasts of the island, and settled there, driving the Celts into the inland country. Lappenberg's life-like picture of the condition of these people is as follows:—

"In the southern parts of England, which had become more civilized through commerce, the cultivation of grain, to which the mildness of the climate was favourable, had been greatly improved by the art of marling. The daily consumption was taken from the unthrashed corn, preserved in caves, which they prepared for food, but did not bake as bread. Horticulture was not in use among them, nor the art of making cheese; yet the great number of buildings, of people, and of cattle, appeared striking to the Romans. Copper and bits of iron, according to weight, served as money. Their custom of painting themselves with blue and green, for the purpose of terrifying their enemies, as well as that of tattooing, was retained till a later period by the Picts of the North. At certain sacrifices, even the women, painted in a similar manner, resembling Ethiopians, went about without clothing. Long locks and mustachios were general. Like the Gauls, they decorated the middle finger with a ring. Their round simple huts of reeds or wood resembled those of that people; and the Gaulish chequered coloured mantles are still in common use in the Scottish Highlands. Their clothing, more especially that of the Belgic tribes of the south, enveloped the whole body; a girdle encircled the waist, and chains of metal hung about the breast. The hilts of their huge pointless swords were adorned with the teeth of marine animals; their shields were small. The custom of fighting in chariots, on the axles of which scythes were fastened, and in the management of which they showed great skill, was peculiar to this and some other of the Celtic nations, in a generally level country, and where the horses were not sufficiently powerful to be used for cavalry. The charioteer was the superior person; the servant bore the weapons. They began their attacks with taunting songs and deafening howls. Their fortresses or towns consisted in the natural defence of impenetrable forests. In the interior of the country were found only the more rugged characteristics of a people engaged in the rearing of cattle; which, together with the chase, supplied skins for clothing, and milk and flesh for food. The northern part of the country seems in great measure to have been abandoned to the shaft and javelin of the roving hunter, as skilful as he was bold. Simplicity, integrity,