of stones, some supporting the skeletons of horses'
heads. This tumulus was probably the tomb of some great warrior: the
horses' skeletons were the remains of a sacrifice, and the human bones of
beings who had been immolated to accompany the earthly remains of their
great chief to another world.

We took a boat for Gavr' Inis, or the Goat Island, and embarked on the
Morbihan (Breton, Little Sea), an inland sea, that gives its name to the
department. Shut out from the ocean by the two peninsulas of Locmariaker
and Rhuys, which form a narrow gully between the points of Kerpenhir and
Port Navalo, this sea contains an archipelago of islands, numbering,
according to tradition, as many as the days in the year. Of these, the Ile
aux Moines is the largest. The arms of the sea forming the rivers of Auray
and Vannes run into it. The navigation of the Morbihan is very dangerous,
the ocean entering it by this narrow opening in three distinct currents;
it is an endless labyrinth of rocks and water; its granite shores, torn by
the sea, are indented with creeks, capes, and inlets.

[Illustration: 37. Entrance to the Tumulus of Gavr' Inis.]

[Illustration: 38/39. Sculptured Stones. Gavr' Inis.]

Gavr' Inis is a small island, surmounted by a tumulus, which forms a
conspicuous object, seen from all the mounds and dolmens around. It is a
galgal of heaped stones, in the centre of which is a dolmen or galleried
chamber, which was opened in 1832, and is the most curious monument in the
Morbihan. The gallery, with its square sepulchral chamber at the end, is
above fifty feet long and about five wide, composed of two rows of granite
menhirs, or upright stones, which form the sides, with horizontal stones
resting on them, ending in a chamber consisting of eight menhirs, with an
enormous slab, thirteen feet long, placed over them horizontally to form
the roof, and another, nearly as large, to form the floor. These stones
are of granite, and no cement is used to unite them. They are covered
with incised figures of unknown meaning: sculptures in concentric whorls
or circles, as if tattoed like the cheek of a New Zealander; and the only
forms to be distinguished are serpent-like figures, and the representation
of an axe, similar to those to be seen in the Grotte des Fees, the Dol des
Marchands, and the Manne-Lud. In one of the side stones of the chamber are
two handle-looking projections, with a recess behind, said, probably
erroneously, to be t