“I put up a few rabbits and a great many pigeons.  I also saw an animal that I believe to have been a wolf, but it retreated with such rapidity that I lost sight of it among the tree stems.  There was very little undergrowth, as often happens under pines, but the boughs overhead formed a close screen, and the heat was very oppressive.  After about an hour’s walking I emerged on a cliff above the sea, having mistaken my direction, and crossed the island diagonally.  On getting clear of the trees I could again see the goal of my walk, the clump, this time a good deal nearer; and now resolutely plunging into the wood, and keeping always slightly to the right, for I saw that my bias was to the left, I came at last to a place where I could see the sides of a mound through the trees rather indistinctly.

“All of a sudden I came to a low wall among the trees, overgrown in some places, but opposite me almost entirely clear.  It was built of large stones carefully fitted together, like the architecture that I remembered to have seen called Cyclopean in architectural histories of Greece.  It was easily climbed, and I saw that it surrounded the mound at the distance of about fifty yards, in an irregular circle.

“The space which intervened between it and the mound was partially filled with great hewn stones planted all about, some of them lying on their side, some upright, many of them broken.  Going through these I came upon the mound itself.  It was crowned with a group of firs, which I could see at once to be much older than the surrounding trees.  They were far larger and taller, for the height of the mound did not entirely account for the extraordinary way in which they overtopped the rest of the trees.  The mound was very steep, and was apparently constructed of stones built carefully together; but only very small portions of the masonry were visible, it was so overgrown and hidden.

“Wandering round it I found a rude flight of steps leading to the top, also much overgrown.  I ascended hastily, and found myself on the top of a smooth plateau, about fifty by thirty yards, surrounded by the gigantic firs; but what immediately arrested my attention was a strange rude altar in the middle, ornamented with uncouth figures and other ornaments.  It was covered with moss at the top, and very much cracked and splintered in places.

“I concluded at once that I was in the presence of some remains, probably Druidic in origin, which, owing to the extraordinary desolation of the spot and the superstition attaching to the island, had been so long unvisited as to have been forgotten.  I could see that the mound was quite surrounded by the wall, and that it was evidently a sacred enclosure of some kind.