It seems to have been ever taken for granted that these round towers must have been fortresses, and the only remaining question seemed to be—by what people, nation, or language were they so used? Was it by the Phœnicians? A great antiquary showed that in Tyre and Sidon there must have been edifices precisely of the same character, though no vestige of them now remains. Did they belong to the Caledonians of the days of Tacitus, or to the Atacotti, or to the Dalriads, or to the Albanich, or to the Siol Torquil, or the Fion Gall, or the Dubh Gall? Or, were they erected especially by some individual Aulaf or Maccus, or Sigurd, or Thorfin, or Godred M‘Sitric, or Diarmid M‘Maelnambo—all gentlemen having their own peculiar claims on the architectural merit? It occurred to us one day to ask internally the question, whether they were fortresses or strongholds at all? It arose as we looked down from the broken edge of the galleried wall of one of those towers in solitary Glen-Elg Beg. It stands, a hoar ruin on the edge of a precipice, where a torrent takes a sudden turn; and nothing could be better conceived for the landscape ideal of the remains of some robber stronghold of the middle ages, than the remnant of circular masonry rising flush from the edge of the precipice. But it was precisely the force with which these apparent conditions of a fortified character were conveyed, that showed the utter want of them in the others scattered throughout the valley. What could they have defended? Whom could they have resisted? Primitive fortresses are places where considerable armies or large numbers of people go for protection from besieging enemies. Now, though the outside circle of these burghs is considerable, yet, from the thickness of the galleried wall, they only contain an inner area of from twenty to thirty feet—the size of a moderate dining-room. And, while the numbers they could have held were thus few, they possessed no means like the medieval castles for assault, and could have been easily pulled to pieces by an enemy. Nor, if they were places of strength, can it be easily conceived why there should be a whole cluster of them in a place like Glen Beg, and no others in the neighbouring districts. The notion, indeed, of their being strongholds, seems to have been grasped at once by their striking resemblance in structure and dimensions to the Norman flanking round towers. But the Norman towers were only outworks, to aid in defence of the central keep, and could have been of small service as detached forts. There are many things which have a warlike resemblance to this part of a feudal castle;—a windmill, as Don Quixote’s chivalrous eye at once told him, possesses the character very decidedly—so does a modern blast-furnace. The columbarium lingering on the grounds of some old mansion is often mistaken for a tower; and the prototype of the columbarium, the Roman tomb, eminently anticipated the form of the Norman tower. Of one of these Byron says,—