enough to do at home. Ninian's work has left
for us memorials such as no other part of these islands can shew. There
are three great upright stones, one at Whithorn itself, and two at
Kirkmadrine, that in all human certainty come from his time. They are in
complete accordance with what we know of sepulchral monuments in Roman
Gaul. Each has a cross in a circle deeply incised, with the member of an R
attached to one limb, so as to form the Chi Rho monogram. The Chi Rho is
found as early as 312 in Rome and 377 in Gaul, with Alpha and Omega, 355
in Rome and 400 in Gaul. _Hic iacet_ is found in 365. The stone at
Whithorn itself has _Petri Apustoli_ rather rudely carved on it. The two
at Kirkmadrine have Latin inscriptions[39] well cut, running apparently
from one to the other, as though they had stood at the head and foot of a
grave in which the four priests were buried:--"here lie the chief
priests"--some say that at that time _sacerdotes_ meant bishops--"that is,
Viventius and Mavorius" "[Piu]s and Florentius." One of these latter
stones has at the top, above the circle, the Alpha and Omega[40]. I ought
to say "had," for some years ago a carriage was seen from a distance to
drive up to the end of the lane leading to the desolate burying-place, a
man got out, went to the stone, knocked off with a hammer the corner
which bore the Omega, and made off with it. They are since then scheduled
as ancient monuments. There was formerly a third stone, which bore the
very unusual Latin equivalent of Alpha and Omega, _initium et finis_, "the
beginning and the end." These remains in a solitary place may indicate the
wealth of very early monuments we must once have had in this island, long
ago broken up by men who saw nothing in them but stones. Time would fail
if I were to begin to tell of the recent exploration of the cave known by
immemorial tradition as Ninian's cave, and of the sculptured treasures of
early Christianity found there. There is in this same territory between
the walls, but nearer the northern wall, another memorial of the later
British times. It is a huge stone a few miles north-west of Edinburgh,
with a rude Latin inscription[41], _In this tumulus lies Vetta, son of
Victis_. It takes us to the time when, along with the Picts and Scots who
ravaged Britain, we hear for the first time of allies of the ravagers
called Saxons. We are accustomed to think of the Saxons as coming first
from the south-east and east; but we hear