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160 THE HISTORY
XIX. I shall conclude this letter with two examples
of such works, as tho' not (that I can hitherto
learn) belonging any way to the Druids, yet
they may possibly be of that kind: or be they of
what kind you will, they certainly merit our notice:
as, together with those for which we can
truely account, they highly serve to illustrate the
antiquities of our Brittish world. My first example
is in the Main-land of Orkney, describ'd among
the rest of those ilands by Dr. Wallace and Mr.
Brand; where, on the top of a high
rocky hill at
the west end of the iland near the village of Skeal,
there is
a sort of pavement, consisting of stones
variously figur'd, some like a heart, others like a
crown, others like a leg, some like a weavers
shuttle, others of other forms : and so on for above
a quarter of a mile in length, and from 20 to 30
foot in breadth.
In taking up any of these stones,
the figure is as neat on the underside as the upper
and being as big as the life, all of one color, or a
reddish kind of stone pitch'd
in a reddish earth,
and the pavement being so very long; it cannot
possibly be any of the tessellated, or chequer'd.
works of the Romans.
" I saw a part of the garden
wall of the house of Skeal, says Mr. Brand*,
decorated with these stones :
and we intended to
have sent a parcel of them to our friends in the
south, as a rarity ;
our return from Zet-laud."
if they had not been forgot, at
Dr. Wallace f also
* Pag. 43. + Pag. 55.