[164] _Peoples_.--See _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, vol. ii. p. 314, where the writer describes tombs sunk beneath a tumulus, about twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter, and also tombs exactly resembling the Irish cromlech, the covering slab of enormous size, being inclined "apparently to carry off the rain." In his account of the geographical sites of these remains, he precisely, though most unconsciously, marks out the line of route which has been assigned by Irish annalists as that which led our early colonizers to Ireland. He says they are found in the presidency of Madras, among the mountains of the Caucasus, on the steppes of Tartary, in northern Africa, "_on the shores of the Mediterranean they are particularly abundant_," and in Spain. [165] _Shells_.--Cat. Ant. R.I.A.; Stone Mat. p. 180. The ethnographic phases of conchology might form a study in itself. Shells appear to be the earliest form of ornament in use. The North American Indians have their shell necklaces buried with them also. See Wilson's _Pre-Historic Man_. [166] _Child_.--Mr. Wilson gives a most interesting description of an interment of a mother and child in an ancient Peruvian grave. The mother had an unfinished piece of weaving beside her, with its colours still bright. The infant was tenderly wrapped in soft black woollen cloth, to which was fastened a pair of little sandals, 2-1/2 inches long; around its neck was a green cord, attached to a small shell.--_Pre-Historic Man_, vol. i. p. 234. [167] _Clare_.--In 1855, in digging for a railway-cutting in the county Clare, gold ornaments were found worth £2,000 as bullion. [168] _Carbuncle_.--This word was used to denote any shining stone of a red colour, such as garnet, a production of the country. CHAPTER XI. Pestilence of the _Blefed_--The Cursing of Tara by St. Rodanus--Extent and Importance of Ancient Tara--The First Mill in Ireland--The _Lia Fail_--Cormac's House--The Rath of the Synods--The Banqueting Hall--Chariots and Swords--St. Columba--St. Brendan and his Voyages--Pre-Columbian Discovery of America--The Plague again--St. Columba and St. Columbanus--Irish Saints and Irish Schools--Aengus the Culdee. [A.D. 543-693.] From time to time, in the world's history, terrible and mysterious pestilences appear, which defy all calculation as to their cause or probable reappearance. Such was the _Blefed_,[169] or _Crom Chonaill_, which desolated Ireland in the year 543. The plague, whatever its nature may have been, appears to have been general throughout Europe. It originated in the East; and in Ireland was preceded by famine, and followed by leprosy. St. Berchan of Glasnevin and St. Finnen of Clonard were amongst its first victims.