Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

NORTH UIST. 120
critical examination and comparison of specimens. I
hare no room here to do for the Stone forts what I have
attempted for the Vitrified ones and the Pictish towers.
It is too extensive a subject. But how far any single
theory, either of their origin or uses, is likely to be uni-
versally applicable, may be judged from Castle an Dinas
in Cornwall, misrepresented by Borlase, consisting of five
concentric walls, the altitude of which, where they are
absolutely complete, is only six feet, and where there is a
ditch, eight ; the thickest being twenty-eight, and the
internal area a hundred and ninety-six, with a stone
causeway like a Roman road, and built at an expense
which, according to a regular architectural measure-
ment and computation, wauld amount at present to*
£30,00a.
I may pass over the single erect stones in this island",
though one of them is remarkable for presenting the rare
height of twenty feet. But it contains specimens of the
Uaighs, or regular subterranean retreats, and of another
singular kind of structure which Pennant seems to have
confounded with these. Not long before my arrival here,
a skeleton had been found in an erect posture in one of
them; this unfortunate Celt having concealed himself
somewhat too effectually. These hiding places, used, ap-
parently, in times of sudden invasion, are in the form
of wells, deep enough to contain a man ; sometimes
lined with stone, but, more commonly, mere pits, over
which a turf was drawn till the alarm was over. They
occur also in Isla and in other places ; but from their
nature, their discovery is always the result of accident,
and cannot happen often. The Uaighs, or Picts' houses
as they are sometimes called, are much more common ;:
and as they have been the subject of misapprehensioB;
and dispute, they will demand a few words.
VOL. III. K