DUN-DORNADILLA SPEC PECIMENS of the ancient architecture of the Pits are now but rarely found, even in the most uncultivated wilds: their remote situations, among the ruggedeft mountains, puts it almoft out of the power of travellers in general to vifit them. Although therefore several views of fimilar structures have already, at Mr. Pennant's inftance, been engraved; yet as this is one of the most entire of those buildings, and by its name remarkable in history, it was judged proper to give a representation of it in this collection, as being much better fuited to explain the defcriptions of these Pictish towers than that given in the Antiquities and Scenery, because it fhews the internal ftructure and arrangements of the lights into the apartments, and is more complete than any other view of it hitherto given. From the almoft inacceffible nature of the avenues among the mountains that lead to it, it is not likely that authentic views of it will be often repeated on the spot: faithful delineation of it is therefore a monument of a species of architecture, any thing like entire remains of which are very few; and it is not probable that any period of fociety will fee the fame ftyle of building resumed. a It is not surprising that fo few of these ancient castles, once the refidences of the chief families, fhould remain, because it is evidently near a thousand years fince the mode of building was changed, by the knowledge of the different kinds of cement, and their application to give ftrength and greater compactness to fortreffes and dwellings. Such buildings are alfo in fome degree venerable, as memorials of the length that human ingenuity will go, in providing the conveniences of life, in situations which we are apt to imagine the most helpless and forlorn. It is evident, that in the age when these fabrics were reared, they had no inftruments of iron: no ftone of them is moulded by a hammer into form, nor is there any fog or other fuch material used to fill up the interstices among the stones; yet the ftones, most artfully laid together, seem to exclude the air, and have been piled with great mathematical care; elfe could they not have remained in a tower like this, of thirty feet high, fo as to have withstood the cafualties of a thousand years. In the ninth century, when the communication of these northern territories with the continent freely opened, they could not fail to learn the use of cement in building, if they had not before difcovered it, and to obtain inftruments of iron. From these circumstances we may be enabled, in fome measure, to ascertain the fo much contested æra of Offian's heroes, as well as that of the Pictish towers. The Car-born chief implies a proficiency in arts, almost incompatible with the state of life where the application of metals is unknown. The bards were men of renown at the above period. When the Scandinavian adventurers haraffed the coafts of the north of Scotland and the Western Isles, the commanders of fleets, and the leaders of armies, carried them along to celebrate their atchievements, and to narrate the difficulties and dangers which their fortitude and prowess overcame *. The fame enthusiasm which inspired the bards in the day of battle, would make them indulge the expreffion of fofter fentiments in days of eafe, and strains of lamentation in the penfive hours of forrow. Thefe hereditary fongs might be for a time preferved by oral tradition, and many of them were put on record by a Danish hiftoriographer in the island of Flota, one of the Orcades; and there is reason to believe the poems attributed to Offian, the fon of Fingal, are the production of various bards preserved in the above channel; or he might have been one of the general recorders and collectors of them. Carrried away by thefe remarks from the particular confideration of the structure represented in the plate, it is only neceffary to refer to an ample defcription of its romantic fituation and internal form, given in the article Dun-Dornadilla, page 105, &c. of the author's "Antiquities and Scenery," where many illustrations are given of the nature, extent, conveniency, and general character of these buildings. This one is fituated in the central parts of Strath-Never, one large divifion of the county of Sutherland, and is celebrated as a place of renown in an ancient Erse ballad of a few lines, of which the following is a tranflation: Seven miles from ocean, in the chearful dale, Stands the large tower, where Dornadilla reigns ; See Torphaus' authority. Antiquities and Scenery of Scotland, p. 150, |