in the ancient British customs, the name of a ceremony originally used in the druidical worship, and retained in many places down to a very late period, as a civil ceremony towards persons of particular distinction. The temples of the ancient Britons were all circular; and the druids, in performing the public offices of their religion, never neglected to make three turns round the altar, accompanied by all the worshippers. This practice was so habitual to the ancient Britons, that it continued in some places many ages after the druids and their religion were both destroyed. In the Scottish isles, the vulgar never come to the ancient sacrificing and fire-hallowing cairns, but they walk three times round them, from east to west, according to the course of the sun. This sanctified tour, or round by the south, is called deiscal, from dear or delis, "the right hand," and soil or sul, "the sun;" the right hand being ever next the heap or cairn. In the same isles it is the custom and fashion of the people to testify their respect for their chieftains, the proprietors of their several isles, and other persons of distinction, by performing the deiscal round them in the same manner. A gentleman giving an account of his reception in one of the Western islands, of which he was proprietor, describes the ceremony of the deiscal in this manner: "One of the natives would needs express his high esteem for my person, by making a turn round about me sun-ways, and at the same time blessing me, and wishing me all happiness. But I bid him let alone that piece of homage, telling him I was sensible of his good meaning towards me. But this poor man was very much disappointed, as were also his neighbours; for they doubted not but this ancient ceremony would have been very acceptable to me; and one of them told me that this was a thing due to my character from them, as to their chief and patron; and that they could not, and would not, fail to perform it."