Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

DUNSCAICH. 425
hand, were the real Castle of Cuchullin. Such buildings
as that, are likely, at least, to have belonged to the dis-
tant times in question.
It is said that there was a vitrified fort at Dunscaich
Island. I searched, however, in vain, for any vitrified
substances ; nor could I find any other traces of works
than the stone fort just mentioned, which is sufficiently
conspicuous. Yet I will not say that there are no other;
as it is frequently very difficult to discover the vitrified
walls, when covered, as they often are, with earth and
vegetation. When I defended Williams's theory for-
merly, I ought to have noticed, at the same time, that he
had considered these works merely as enclosures for con-
taining- the cattle, or the women and children, of an invaded
tribe. Not having made fortification his study, he was
unaware of the ingenuity of their arrangements, and of
the judicious manner in which the ground had been
occupied. How important a part of their history this is,
I formerly showed. There is a circumstance respecting
the paved causeways attached to some of them, which
may perhaps assist in proving their remote Celtic origin
if such slender analogies can be at all admitted towards
a proof. Isidore informs us that the Carthaginians, whose
language proves them to have been a Celtic people, as I
have shown elsewhere, were the first who paved their
towns ; and that, from them, the Romans borrowed this
practice, and the art of constructing those roads which
have excited the admiration of posterity to this day. It
was Appius Claudius Csecus who first paved Rome,
forming the Appian way, 188 years after the expulsion
of the Kings ; and I formerly remarked the accurate resemblance
which the causeway of Noath bore to a Roman
road. But to lay much stress on such analogies as this,
•would be to claim fraternity with Doctor Keating' and
Siim Breac.
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