Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/219

Rh remarkably hard gravelly soil, so hard that the labourers made very slow progress even with their pick-axes. I did not excavate any more, as they were all evidently of the same character. The choice of such a soil, especially with the instruments they possessed, may, perhaps, show the importance which the Britons attached to the rite of burial.

About a quarter of a mile, or rather less, from this great graveyard lay a solitary mound, two feet and a half in height, having a circumference of twenty-seven feet, a very common measurement, but without any trench. Upon digging into it on the east side we quickly came, about four inches from the surface, upon a patch of charcoal and burnt earth. Proceeding farther, we reached two well-defined layers of charcoal, the uppermost two feet from the top of the barrow. A band of red burnt earth, measuring five inches, separated these two beds, in both of which in places appeared white spots and patches of limy matter, the remains of calcined bones. In the centre, as shown in the drawing, we found a Keltic urn. Imbedded in a fine white burnt clay, which had hardened, placed with its mouth uppermost, and ornamented with a rough cable-moulding, and two small ears, it stood on the level of the natural soil, rising to within sixteen inches of the top of the mound.

Digging on both sides, we discovered two more urns imbedded in the same hard white sandy clay, so hard that it had to be scraped away with knives. Like the first, they were made by hand, and when exposed quite shone with a bright vermilion, which quickly changed to a dull grey. The paste, however, was a light yellow, mixed with coarse gritty sand. And the three were placed, as shown by the compass, exactly due north-east and south-west.

A plain moulding ran round the south-west urn, which was 201