Following a well-paved causeway of some seven or eight feet wide, the
flat stones of which have been worn smooth by countless generations of
forgotten footsteps, we can perceive perfectly the ground plan of the
houses on each side. In most cases Dr. Sarmento has excavated down to
the stone-laid flooring of the houses inside, and to the base of the
masonry outside; and it is possible to wander through the main lanes or
streets of the town, crossing each other at right angles here and there,
and interspersed by little circular paved open spaces, and to
reconstruct in the mind’s eye the primitive life of this city of long
ago. Here, for instance, just inside the wall by which we entered is a
little square house, some twelve feet wide, containing two rough
millstones, of which many have been found. The walls are of huge, rough
stones, evidently taken as they came and fitted together with small
stones where necessary to fill in interstices, the whole cemented
together by some hard rubbly compost. Running past this building and
through the town (in one or two cases, indeed, through the houses
themselves) is one of the several stone water channels protected by low
walls on each side, and supplied in ancient times by the springs that
still gush out plentifully on the hillside.
Some of the houses are much larger, and must have contained two or more
apartments. But what strikes the eye of the observer most is the
relatively large number of purely circular edifices, and this it is that
has mainly attracted the speculations of archæologists. Mr. Oswald
Crawford, who went over the place whilst the excavations were in their
earlier stages many years ago, was mistaken in his estimate that the
round buildings were eight or nine times more numerous than the square,
and he founded upon this and other data the opinion that the whole place
was a great granary, where the food of the tribes might be stored in
safety. So far from the round houses being eight times as numerous as
the square, found at least four square houses to every one round; but
that which struck me as most curious, and so far as I could learn, it
had not specially attracted the attention of previous visitors, was that
in a large number of cases the round houses were enclosed in a square or
angular walled space, not very much larger than the circle, but leaving
a passage of some two feet wide, in most cases on the right-hand side,
between the two walls, leading to a space at the back between the
circular wall and the wall of the square enclosure, the left-hand side
of the circular wall being mostly built to touch the square wall on that
side. Dr. Sarmento was of opinion that the space thus formed was for the
purpose of sheltering cattle and domestic animals, and says that he had
found some rough stone excavations like troughs in them, with, in one or
two cases, a ring in the wall as if to tether beasts. The width of the
entrance passage and the extent of the enclosed space in the rear of the