5

162 THE HISTORY
tion and manners. Egypt, I mean, and the iles
of Scotland.
Yet this they have in common, that
Egypt, once the mother of all arts and sciences, is
now as ignorant of her own monuments, and as fabulous
in the accounts of them, as any Highlanders
can be about theirs. Such changes, however,
are as nothing in
the numberless revolutions of
ages. But to our subject. Herodotus says, in
the second book of his
history, that near to tke
entry of the magnificent temple of Minerva at Sais
in Egypt (of which he speaks with admii-ation) he
saw an edifice 21 cubits in length, 14 in breadth,
and 8 in heigth, the whole consisting onely of one
stone; and that it was brought thither by sea, fi-om
a place about 20 days sailing from Sais. This is
my first instance. And, parallel to it, all those
who ha^e been in Hoy, one of the Orkneys, do
afiirra (wifliout citing, or many of them knowing
this passage of Herodotus) that there lies
barren heath in this
on a
iland an oblong stone, in a
valley between two moderate hills, call'd, I suppose,
antiphrastically, or by way of contraries, thfe
Itivarfy-stone.
It is 36 foot long, 18 foot broad,
and 9 foot high. No other stones are near it.
Tis all hoUow'd within, or (as we may say)
scoop'd by human art and industry, having a
door on the east side 2 foot square, with a stone
of the same dimension lying about two foot from
it, which was intended, on doubt, to close this
entrance.
Within there is, at the south end of it.