Plouharnel, Concarneau, Concurrus,
Locmariaquer, Kermario, Kerlescant, Erdeven, and Sainte-Barbe. All
these places are situated within a few miles of one another, and a
good centre from which excursions can be made to each is the little
town of Auray, with its quaint medieval market-house and shrine of St
Roch. Archaeologists, both Breton and foreign, appear to be agreed that
the groups of stones at Meneac, Kermario, and Kerlescant are portions
of one original and continuous series of alignments which extended for
nearly two miles in one direction from south-west to north-east. The
monolithic avenue commences quite near the village of Meneac,
stretching away in eleven rows, and here the large stones are
situated, these at first rising to a height of from 10 to 13 feet, and
becoming gradually smaller, until they attain only 3 or 4 feet. In all
there are 116 menhirs at Meneac. For more than three hundred yards
there is a gap in the series, which passed, we come to the Kermario
avenue, which consists of ten rows of monoliths of much the same size
as those of Meneac, and 1120 in number.

Passing on to Kerlescant, with its thirteen rows of menhirs made up of
570 individual stones, we come to the end of the avenue and gaze
backward upon the plain covered with these indestructible symbols of a
forgotten past.

Carnac! There is something vast, Egyptian, in the name! There is,
indeed, a Karnak in Egypt, celebrated for its Avenue of Sphinxes and
its pillared temple raised to the goddess Mut by King Amenophis III.
Here, in the Breton Carnac, are no evidences of architectural skill.
These sombre stones, unworked, rude as they came from cliff or
seashore, are not embellished by man's handiwork like the rich temples
of the Nile. But there is about this stone-littered moor a mystery, an
atmosphere no less intense than that surrounding the most solemn ruins
of antiquity. Deeper even than the depths of Egypt must we sound if we
are to discover the secret of Carnac. What mean these stones? What
means faith? What signifies belief? What is the answer to the Riddle
of Man? In the words of Cayot Delandre, a Breton poet:

Tout cela eut un sens, et traduisit
Une pensee; mais cle de ce mystere,
Ou est elle? et qui pourrait dire aujourd'hui
Si jamais elle se retrouvera?[9]

_A Vision_

Over this wild, heathy track, covered with the blue flowers of the
dwarf gentian, steals a subtle change. Nor air nor heath has altered.
The lic