they are
also to be found both in the Western Isles and on the mainland - Duns. Pennant
has engraved a view of the famous Dun-Dornadilla in Glenelg; and there are many
others, all of them built after a peculiar mode of architecture, which argues a
people in the most primitive state of society. The most perfect specimen is that
upon the island of Mousa, near to the mainland of Zetland, which is probably in
the same state as when inhabited.
It is a single round tower, the wall curving in slightly, and then turning
outward again in the form of a dice-box, so that the defenders on the top might
the better protect the base. It is formed of rough stones, selected with care,
and laid in courses or circles, with much compactness, but without cement of any
kind. The tower has never, to appearance, had roofing of any sort; a fire was
made in the centre of the space which it encloses, and originally the building
was probably little more than a wall drawn as a sort of screen around the great
council fire of the tribe. But, although the means or ingenuity of the builders
did not extend so far as to provide a roof, they supplied the want by
constructing apartments in the interior of the walls of the tower itself. The
circumvallation formed a double enclosure, the inner side of which was, in fact,
two feet or three feet distant from the other, and connected by a concentric
range of long flat stones, thus forming a series of concentric rings or storeys
of various heights, rising to the top of the tower. Each of these storeys or
galleries has four windows, facing directly to the points of the compass, and
rising of course regularly above each other. These four perpendicular ranges of
windows admitted air, and, the fire being kindled, heat, or smoke at least, to
each of the galleries. The access from gallery to gallery is equally primitive.
A path, on the principle of an inclined plane, turns round and round the
building like a screw, and gives access to the different storeys, intersecting
each of them in its turn, and thus gradually rising to the top of the wall of
the tower. On the outside there are no windows; and I may add, that an
enclosure, of a square, or sometimes a round form, gave the inhabitants of the
Burgh an opportunity to secure any sheep or cattle which they might possess.
Such is the general architecture of that very early period when the Northmen
swept the seas, and brought to their rude houses