III.
The results of these excavations were described in a large work written and illustrated by himself, and issued in Edinburgh and Paris. By January of 1877 he was busily prosecuting his explorations at Kermaric, a gunshot distant from Carnac, and the work went steadily on with the most fruitful results in many other parts of the district until the end of 1880, when Miln returned to Edinburgh in order to produce another book describing his researches. Unhappily, in the midst of his literary labour, he was seized with a brief illness, which at the end of six days resulted in his death on Friday, 28th January, 1881, at twelve minutes to eleven, as the faithful M. le Rouzic records.
James Miln was a member of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, la Société royale des Antiquaries du Nord, the Academy of Copenhagen, and several learned societies in England and the Continent. "C'est avec une douloureuse émotion que l'on apprit, à Carnac, la nouvelle de sa mort," to quote again his faithful henchman. The museum with its precious contents was secured to Carnac through the efforts of Mr. Robert Miln, the son of the antiquary, and his friend Admiral Tremlett, and was opened on the 22nd May, 1882, since when it has remained a centre of great interest and importance to all antiquarian students, and an enduring monument to "M'sieu Meelin of Dondae."
This is a brief outline of the life of a little-known Scotsman, which is worth recalling as an example of the quiet, unostentatious way in which the Scot will carry on any enterprise that lies near to his heart, with no eye to personal advertisement, but out of sheer pleasure in the work his hand has found to do. Thus it is that one meets with traces of our countrymen in the remote and unfrequented corners of earth, and at the ring of an old name the mind of the wanderer is carried back across "the waste of seas" to the land whose sons, by some strange irony of fate, are prone to find their life-work far from home.
IV.
But my story must not end here, although we take our leave of James Miln and his museum. It is almost impossible to describe in any adequate way the historic value of this part of Brittany. Stonehenge, in England, is a national monument which we zealously treasure, yet its value, compared with the neolithic remains of Morbihan, is as a drop in a bucket of water. In the region to the east and north of Carnac druidical remains are as plentiful as blackberries in an autumn hedge. The sight of what are known as "les alignements de Carnac" is one never to be forgotten. Standing on the little mound by the chapel of Saint Michael already mentioned, and looking northward across the plain, we see an enormous range of menhirs or druidical stones standing like an army at attention. There are no fewer than 2,813 of these massive stones to be seen from this point, and the imagination is busy at once striving to picture the strange rites practised here by unknown people before the dawn of history. Dotted all over the vast plains are dolmens and cromlechs of varying size.
One of the largest dolmens that I visited is known as the Merchants' Table. It stands near Locmariaquer, and consists of an enormous stone laid flat on the top of a series of smaller stones. Originally the supporting stones would be only slightly imbedded in the earth, but in the ages that have passed the soil has accumulated until they are now sunk six or eight feet deep, but still project above the ground to the height of four or five feet. The roof-stone must weigh some hundred tons, and one of the mysteries is how a people, whose instruments were of the most primitive kind, could place such a mammoth block in so elevated a position. The dolmens, of which the Merchants' Table is one of the finest examples, were probably places of burial, and are always approached by a smaller chamber of the same rude construction. The interior of the one in question bears many strange carvings, that remain an enigma even to the most erudite.
Some authorities believe these structures may have been used as houses; others suppose them to have been altars, so that it will be seen their purpose has not yet been decided upon by their most learned students. The cromlechs, which are a series of stones standing in a circle, were most probably sanctuaries, and there is reason to believe that it was here the Druid priests practised their unknown rites. They are generally to be found at the end of an "alignment," and are oriented, so that the likelihood is the worshippers stood within the long rows of stones, which would correspond to the choir of a cathedral, and the priests were in the cromlech looking toward the rising of the sun.
To return for the last time to the great army of menhirs, or single stones, seen from St. Michael's chapel near Carnac, the legend popular in the district is that when St. Corneille, a Pope of Rome, was being pursued by an army of pagan soldiers, he had with him two oxen, which carried his belongings and sometimes himself when he was fatigued. One evening, when he had arrived near a village where he would have rested the night, he determined to press on beyond it because he had heard a young girl insult her mother! He saw soon afterwards that the soldiers, who had been following him, were arranged in line of battle, and he was between them and the sea. So he stopped, and transformed the entire army into stones. This is at least a picturesque way for accounting for those marvellous remains that have baffled the minds of men to explain.