Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/28

14 without adding a stone to the heap; they supposed it would be an honour to the dead, and acceptable to his manes. To this moment there is a proverbial expression among the Highlanders allusive to the old practice; a suppliant will tell his patron, curri mi cloch er do charne (I will add a stone to your cairn), meaning, when you are no more I will do all possible honour to your memory." The tops of cairns were also possibly used as high places of sacrifice. Monuments like these cannot fail to arrest the attention and impress the mind no less by their intrinsic interest as the creations of human genius, than by the remote antiquity with which they are associated, and as their long-buried mysteries present themselves so frequently in the course of this survey, I trust this digression may be readily pardoned.

(400 yards.) Returning to the Maiden Way we find that at 7090 yards it arrives at the Little Beacon Tower, leaving an excellent track over all this hilly ground. There can be no doubt that this tower was the work of the Romans. It has evidently been a mountain post for a body of Roman sentinels. It is placed on the western side of the road. It has been 18 feet square on the outside, and the walls have been 3 feet thick. The entrance has been on the north side. The lower part of the walls (about 6 feet high) is still standing, but it is surrounded by the stones which have fallen down from the higher part of the tower. The Roman ashlars are numerous. The situation of this tower has probably been a forest at some former period, as appears from the many large trunks of trees which are dug out of the adjacent peaty ground. Gibbon says, "the spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and elegant habitations." It is now an almost barren moor, of a very forbidding aspect, and seemingly protected by its natural barriers from the encroachment of hostile armies. The prospect from this tower is very extensive. It might exchange signals with most of the stations on the western part of the Roman Wall, and with many points on the Maiden Way to the south of Birdoswald, and also with nearly all the detached Roman stations and encampments in Cumberland..

About a quarter of a mile on the west side of this tower, at the extreme point of this high ridge of land, are some