There is scarcely to be named that part of the world where there are hills, and no hill-forts. They occur in the Holy Land; and Jeremiah speaks of the people being hunted “from every mountain, and from every hill.” On the approach of the Assyrians, we hear that the Israelites possessed themselves of all the tops of the high mountains. They are found all over the East—on the steppes of the Russian provinces—on the German and Scandinavian hills—in all parts of the British empire: while those which have been discovered in the valley of the Mississippi, and other parts of America, are said to have a precise resemblance to the specimens in the county of Angus. Often, of course, efforts have been made to connect them with early historical events—as when the fortified camp of Caractacus has been found in England, and that of Galgacus, in fifty different places of Scotland: while the Germans are naturally anxious to find the circle within which their national hero, Arminius, or Hermann, assembled the tribes who punished the presumption of Varus. But these are all vain speculations; and when or how these forts were made, we shall probably find out when we get the working plans and the engineers’ contract for Stonehenge. Among the English hill-forts, there is the Herefordshire beacon, on the highest point of the Malvern hills, commanding the main pass through the chain. It is an irregular oblong, one hundred and seventy-five feet by one hundred and ten; and the inner wall is a strong work of stones and turf. Three exterior walls encompass it, and an eccentric work lops out at either side, on some engineering principle, which, doubtless, was highly approved of in its day, but is sunk in as deep oblivion as the name of the people who awaited anxiously within the inner ring to see the heads of the enemy, as they strove to mount the steep acclivity, in the year of the world in which the defence was completed. Wales claims the chief specimens in England, for the reason we have already stated—that Wales has hills. Hence we have Moel y Gaer in Flintshire, and a great work close to the Castle of Montgomery, where, King says, it was certainly needless, “unless it had been long prior to the erection of that castle.” There are, besides these, Carn Madryn, Trer Caeri in Carnarvonshire, and Caer Caradoc, which tradition associates with Caractacus. One of the oddest of these forts is Penman Mawr, of which Pennant says, “After climbing for some space among the loose stones, the fronts of three, if not four walls presented themselves very distinctly, one above the other. In most places the facings appeared very perfect, but all dry work. I measured the height of one wall, which was at the time nine feet; the thickness seven feet and a half. Between these walls, in all parts, were innumerable small buildings, mostly circular, and regularly faced within and without, but not disposed in any certain order. These had been much higher, as is evident from the fall of stones