Now, only a few
arrow-heads are turned up by the plough. In the Pelasgic, the
Etruscan, or the British story, there is nothing so shadowy and
unreal.
It is a wild and antiquated looking graveyard, overgrown with
bushes, on the high-road, about a quarter of a mile from and
overlooking the Merrimack, with a deserted mill-stream bounding
it on one side, where lie the earthly remains of the ancient
inhabitants of Dunstable. We passed it three or four miles below
here. You may read there the names of Lovewell, Farwell, and
many others whose families were distinguished in Indian warfare.
We noticed there two large masses of granite more than a foot
thick and rudely squared, lying flat on the ground over the
remains of the first pastor and his wife.
It is remarkable that the dead lie everywhere under stones,--
"Strata jacent passim _suo_ quseque sub" _lapide_--
_corpora_, we might say, if the measure allowed. When the stone
is a slight one, it does not oppress the spirits of the traveller
to meditate by it; but these did seem a little heathenish to us;
and so are all large monuments over men's bodies, from the
pyramids down.
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