Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/440

414 be struck with the likeness that exists between woodcut No. 25 and woodcuts 175 and 176, especially the first. Such similarity is more than sufficient to take away all improbability from Dr. Barth's suggestion that "the traces of art which they display may be ascribed to Roman influence." It also renders it nearly certain that these African trilithons were sepulchral, and adds another to the many proofs adduced above that Stonehenge was both sepulchral and post-Roman.

The most curious point, however, connected with these monuments is the suggestion of Indian influence which they—especially that at Elkeb—give rise to. The introduction of sloping jambs, derived from carpentry forms, can be traced back in India, in the caves of Behar and the Western Ghâts, to the second century before Christ, but certainly to no earlier date. The carpentry forms, but without the sloping jambs, continued at Sanchi and the Ajunta caves till some time after the Christian era, and where wood is used has, in fact, continued to the present day. "Mutatis mutandis," no two monuments can well be more alike to one another than that at Elkeb and the Buddhist tomb at Bangkok, represented in woodcut 177. The Siamese tomb may be a hundred years old; and if we allow the African trilithon to be late Roman, we have some fourteen or fifteen centuries between them, which, certainly, is as long as can reasonably be demanded. In reality it was probably less, but if the one was prehistoric, we lose altogether the thread of association and tradition that ought to connect the two.

To all this we shall have occasion to return, and then to discuss it more at length, when speaking of the Indian monuments and their connection with those of the West. In the meanwhile these two form a stepping-stone of sufficient importance to make us feel how desirable it is that the country where they are found should be more carefully examined. My impression is that the key to most of our mysteries is hidden in these African deserts.