still inhabited, holding forty men in some cases, yet he says they were
"so ancient that nobody knows how long ago any of them were made." Of
the underground galleries another writer says: "It has been doubted if
these houses were ever really used as places of abode.... But as to this
there can be no real doubt. The substances found in many of them have
been the accumulated _débris_ of food used by man.... Ornaments of
bronze have been found in a few of them, and beads of streaked glass. In
some cases the articles found would indicate that the occupation of
these houses had come down to comparatively recent times."[66]

In conclusion, these remarks of Captain Thomas, who made so thorough a
study of the subject, may be quoted:--

"The Pict's house on the Holm of Papay [Orkney] would have held,
besides the chiefs at each end, all the families in [the island of]
Papay Westray when it was built. Maes howe[67] was for three
families--grandees, no doubt; but the numbers it was intended to
hold in the _beds_ may be learned by comparing them with the
Amazon's House, St. Kilda."[68]

"I consider the relation between the _boths_ [beehive houses] and
the Picts' houses of the Orkneys (and elsewhere) to be evident--the
same method of forming the arch, the low and narrow doors and
passages, the enormous thickness of the walls, when compared with
the interior accommodation--exist in both. When a _both_ is covered
with green turf it becomes a chambered tumulus, and when buried by
drifting sand it is a subterranean Pict's house.... I regard the
comparatively large Picts' houses of the Orkneys as the pastoral
residence of the Pictish lord, fitted to contain his numerous
family and dependents. Such an one exists on the Holm of Papa