[195] Neither can I, with him, restrict their object to Tombs alone; their Phallic shape bespeaks another allusion; as does the style of architecture indicate an affinity of descent, though not an identity of design with that of our Towers.
[196] In his treatise, De Deâ Syriâ.
[197] Of this distant adoration we may still see traces in the practice of the Irish peasantry, almost preferring to say their prayers outside the precincts of the chapel, or mass-house, than within it, unconsciously derived from this service of the Afrion, or benediction-house, i.e. the Round Towers.
[198] The Ghabres to this day chew a leaf of it in their mouths, while performing their religious duties round the sacred fire.
[199] Those are what Montmorency would fain make out to have been roses imported from the Vatican.
[200] A similar sacrifice is described by Major Archer as still practised in the mountains of Upper India, which he himself witnessed. “An unfortunate goat,” says he, “lean and emaciated, was brought as an offering to the deities; but so poor in flesh was he that no crow would have waited his death in hopes of a meal from his carcass.”
[201] “Round the tie or umbrella at the top (of the Dagobs at Ceylon) are suspended a number of small bells, which with these form tees of a great quantity of smaller pagodas that surround the quatine, being set in motion by the wind, keep up a constant tinkling, but not unpleasing sound” (Coleman).
The temples of Budh in the Burmese empire are also pyramidical, the top always crowned with a gilt umbrella of iron filagree, hung round with bells.—“The tie or umbrella is to be seen on every sacred building that is of a spiral form; the rising and consecration of this last and indispensable appendage is an act of high religious solemnity, and a season of festivity and relaxation. The present king bestowed the tie that covers Shoemadoo: it was made at the capital. Many of the principal nobility came down from Ummerapoora to be present at the ceremony of its elevation. The circumference of the tie is fifty-six feet; it rests on an iron axis fixed in the building, and is further secured by large chains strongly riveted to the spire. Round the lower rim of the tie are appended a number of bells, which agitated by the wind make a continual jingling” (Symes).
[202] “It is remarked that in China they have no pyramids, but pagodas raised by galleries, one above another, to the top: the most celebrated of these is that called the Porcelain Tower, in Nankin, said to be two hundred feet high, and forty feet at the base, built in an octagonal form. These pagodas seem to have been designed for altars of incense, raised to their aërial deities, with which to appease them; and their hanging bells, with their tintillations to drive away the demons lest they should, by noxious and malignant winds and tempests, disturb their serene atmosphere and afflict their country” (Dissertations upon the Pyramids).
[203] The reason of this will appear hereafter; while in the interim I must observe that this new appropriation of them to Christian purposes was what occasioned that error on the part of a writer some centuries after, who opined that it was Sanctus Patricius who first presented one to Sancto Kierano. I make no question of the present; but does presentation imply invention?