The Black Hills Union

PUZZLE FOR THE ANTIQUARIANS

Relics of a Race Who Lived on an Island Off the French Coast.

A lady whose home is in the south of France writes to Goldthwaite's Magazine of a visit she made recently to an island on the coast of Brittany. Those who have read the story of King Arthur and his knights will remember that they started out over the sea in pursuit of the dragon. In this, the Morbihan sea, is a little island which can be reached from the mainland only when the water is smooth. The sole inhabitant is a Breton shepherd, who lives in a little hut and spends his time in caring for his sheep. The party landed and were met by the kind-faced old man, who led them over the grassy slope where his flock was feeding, and showed them the way around a hill, on the east side of which they found the entrance to a tunnel. This extended some distance, and its floor, sides and roof were made of immense flat pieces of stone, covered with hieroglyphs and figures "looking somewhat like wreaths and again like coiled serpents." At the end of this tunnel was a hall, also floored, roofed and walled with the same curious stones, and in the center was an altar and a stone upon which it is thought that human sacrifices have been offered. The strangest part of all is that no stones or rocks like those used in this tunnel can be found on the island, and at no place nearer than one hundred miles inland. Who brought them? How did they come? There is no record left--at least none has been found--to tell who these people were, or anything about them. They must have lived many centuries ago, but have vanished entirely, yet their work is as perfect apparently as when first built. It is thought that they may have been Druids, who came here when they left Great Britain; others, again, think that they were worshipers of the serpent god called Hoa. But it is conjecture. All we know is that the stones are there, strangely carved, skillfully put together, but of their builders there is no trace.