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Sacred Stones 9.3
appears to be of a slightly porous nature. A singular fact was
added—that neither this, nor any other kind of stone, exists
on the Steppes in question. There is a great deal of granite
in the bed of the Dneiper, but in the district now under
discussion for hundreds of miles there is no material even
for making roads ;
on mounds are found there ;
the traveller meets with.
yet
an immense number of these statues
they
are the only landmarks
Within the last few years the attention of Europeans in
India has been drawn to the celts and other stone implements
of various kinds and forms found there. Captain Lukis,
who was in India at the time of the Mutiny, and had been
accustomed from his earliest childhood to such objects, told
us that during his residence there he recognised some near
Allahabad, placed on a rectangular altar, built up of square
stones and surmounted by a thin slab ;
from
its centre rose
a short stylus, against which five celts were leaning—three
firmly fixed, and two detached.
Mr H. Rivett-Carnac, recently the head of the Opium
Department in the North-West Provinces, and a keen
observer of antiquarian objects during his annual camping
tours over various parts of his district, has kindly permitted
the use of a paper he wrote on this subject, published in
the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1882. The
celts figured on Plate XIII were all, we believe, found by
him in the Banda district ; their preservation is very possibly
owincT to their having been used as Saiva stones. As far
as this gentleman conducted his investigations, no such stone
implements have been found in use at the present day, even
amongst the most backward of the aboriginal tribes in India.