Downs, between Lambourn and Wantage.  Along the brow of this long ridge wanders that fascinating old track indifferently termed Ridgeway and Icknield Way, which only leaves the highlands to cross the Thames at Streatley.  But we are off our own track now and must return to Avebury, or Abury as the natives have it.  The village is a mile from Beckhampton, and a short distance up the by-road the first glimpse of our goal may be had on the left in the two “Long Stones” just visible across a field.  A little farther one gets the best distant view of Silbury Hill—­one which shows its artificial character and true shape to great advantage.  The sombre tone of the turf that clothes it is remarkable; when seen against the pale sweep of the Downs behind, its sides do not appear to reflect light at all.

[Illustration:  SILBURY HILL.]

“As a cathedral is to a parish church,” Aubrey’s comparison of Avebury with Stonehenge is difficult to understand upon merely a casual visit.  To grasp the unique character of this, the oldest prehistoric monument in Europe, and perhaps in the world, we must take for granted the investigations and discoveries of antiquaries and archaeologists during the last 250 years, and if the comparison between their conjectural but approximately correct plans and the present aspect of this mysterious relic of the Stone Age is disappointing and perplexing, we can only be thankful that the work of Farmer Green and Tom Robinson, the two despoilers mentioned by the earliest investigators, has been prevented in their descendants, and that though the circles are incapable of restoration, the few stones that remain will be preserved for all time.

Avebury is undoubtedly older than Stonehenge and must belong to the true Neolithic period, whether the former does or not.  Of the original six hundred and fifty megaliths eighteen are standing and about the same number are buried.  Some are nearly 17 feet high, and the rampart that encloses the Temple is no less than 4,500 feet round and from 10 to 20 feet in height, though it is computed that from the bottom of the ditch to the wall must have originally been nearly 50 feet.  The modern village, built of some of the missing stones, is partly within the circular earthwork.  This rampart is the only part of the great work which can be readily comprehended by the visitor.  A circle of one hundred stones is said by the archaeologist Stukely to have stood around the edge of the enclosure, forty-four still standing in his time (1720).  The same writer asserts that within the great circle were two other separate rings consisting of thirty stones, and each containing an inner circle of twelve stones.  The northern of these rings had three large stones in the middle; the southern, one enormous stone 27 feet high and nearly 9 feet round.  One, or possibly two, avenues of stones led south-east and south-west; that going in the direction of West Kennet may still be traced