[Illustration: STONEHENGE.]
"Amongst the ruling races of prehistoric times the father sun-god was
the god on the grey white horse, the clouds, and it was this white
horse--the sun-god of the limestone, flint, and chalk country---which
was the god of Stonehenge, the ruins of which describe the complete
ritual of this primeval worship. The worshippers of the sun-god who
built this Temple must, it was thought, have belonged to the Bronze Age,
which theory was supposed to have been confirmed by the number of round
barrow tombs in the neighbourhood. It was also noted that the white
sun-horse was still worshipped and fed daily at Kobe, in Japan."
Stonehenge had been visited by Pepys, who described the stones in his
_Diary_ as being "as prodigious as any tales as I had ever heard of
them, and worth going this journey to see"; and King Charles II had
counted them over several times, but could not bring them twice to the
same number, which circumstance probably gave rise to the legend that no
two people ever counted the number alike, so of course we did not
attempt to count them. But the king's head must have been uneasy at the
time he counted them, as it was after the Battle of Worcester, when he
was a fugitive, retreating across the country in disguise and hidden by
his friends until he could reach the sea-coast of Sussex, and escape by
ship from England.
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