Page:Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe.djvu/112

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SOUTERRAINS

out like the adits of mines, adds, "Hoc maxime Britannia utitur."[1]

In Cornwall, moreover, there are what are locally called fogous. These are either excavated in the rock with passages leading to the sea or to houses, or else they are built of stone slabs standing erect, parallel and covered with other slabs leading to chambers similarly constructed, and all buried under turf or sand. Of the former description there is a very interesting example at Porthcothan in S. Ervan; of the latter the most remarkable is at Trelowaren. The former may have been excavated by smugglers. An interesting account of the excavation of two caves at Archerfield, in Haddingtonshire, is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for 1909. Both caves are natural, but one had been walled up in front, with a doorway and window and with oven; both had paved hearths in the centre, and there was evidence that they had been tenanted some time after the Roman occupation of Britain, as among the fragments of pottery found was some Samian ware. It would appear that both had been inhabited simultaneously, but not consecutively, for a lengthy period, and no doubt can exist that they were mere rock refuges. In a note to the article we read: "On the coast of Island Magee (Ireland) there is a cave, south of the Gobbins, which has been frequently used as a place of refuge. So late as 1798 it was inhabited by outlaws, who constructed a kind of fortification at the entrance, the remains of which still exist."[2]

A cave in the Isle of Egg, one of the Hebrides, has a very narrow entrance, through which one can creep only upon hands and knees, but it rises steeply within and soon becomes lofty, and runs into the bowels of the rock for

  1. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, vi. p. 243, "British Archæological Assoc. Journal," N.S., ix–x. (1903 and 1904).
  2. Cree (J. R.), "Excavation of Two Caves," in "Proceedings of the Soc. of Arch. of Scotland," Edin., 1909, vol. xliii.

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