The artist wishes to call attention to the fact that his drawings were made during the long drought of 1911, when all the rivers were exceptionally low....

T he "Border" is a magical word, and on either side of a line that constantly varied in the course of English and Scottish victories and defeats, all is enchanted ground, the home of memories of forays and fairies, of raids and recoveries, of loves and battles long ago. In the most ancient times of which record remains, the English sway, on the east, might extend to and include Edinburgh; and Forth, or even Tay, might be the southern boundary of the kingdom of the Scots. On the west, Strathclyde

B ut a step over the moor from Waich Water, across by Twin-Law Cairns and down by the Harecleuch Hill we come to the head-waters of the most considerable of Whitadder's tributaries—Blackadder, "vulgarly so pronounced," says the old Statistical Account. Its real name is "Blackwater," according to that authority, because it rises out of peaty swamps that impart to its waters a look of sullen gloom. I am unable to say what now may be its reputation as a trout stream, but long years ago it abounded

C oming now to Kelso,—with Melrose the most pleasing of the towns on Tweed,—we pass the meeting of the waters of Tweed and its largest affluent, Teviot. Kelso has a fine airy square, good streets, and an air of quiet gentility, neighboured as it is by Floors, the palatial seat of the Duke of Roxburghe, and by the trees of Springwood Park, the residence of Sir George Douglas. We are now in the region of the clan of Ker of Cessford, from which the ducal family descends: while the Lothian branch de

T wo or three miles up Teviot from the junction of Oxnam Water, we come to Jed, a beautiful stream, on whose banks dreams the pleasant county town where, close on ninety years ago, they cried that cry of which they do not now like to think—"Burke Sir Walter!" In all the Border there stands no place more picturesquely situated than Jedburgh, nor in historical interest can any surpass it. And though its ancient castle, and the six strong towers that once defended the town, have long since vanished

"forward in y" name of god"; at the foot, a.k. 1.5.9.8 On the panel to the right is the word "forward"; in the centre of the panel the arms of Sir Andrew's wife, Dame Ann...

Stewart, and beneath, a.s. 1.5.9.8. As late as 1767 the house seems to have been occasionally used by the Lord Lothian of that day, but it was even then showing signs of dilapidation. It was, however, occupied by farming tenants down to a recent date, as late, I believe, as 1889. About that year extensive repairs were carried out; the ivy which—however picturesque it may have been—was slowly throttling the old walls, was removed, the panels were refaced, the roof made wind and weather proof, and

Sum speikis of lords, sum speikis of lairds, And sik like men of hie degrie; Of a gentleman I sing a sang, Sum tyme called Laird of Gilnockie. The King he wrytes a luving letter, With his ain hand sae tenderly, And he hath sent it to Johnie Armstrang To cum and speik with him speedily The Eliots and Armstrangs did convene; They were a gallant cumpanie— "We'll ride and meit our lawful King, And bring him safe to Gilnockie.= "Make kinnen * and capon ready, then, And venison in great plentie; We'll

W e now return from Teviotdale to Tweed, which we left at Kelso. The river passes through one of its rock-fenced and narrow defiles at the Trows of Makerstoun, (accent the penultimate,) itself the home from ancient days of a branch of the once great Argyll clan—and generally western clan—of Mac-dougal. How they came so far from their Celtic kindred, potent in Dalriadic Scotland before the Campbells came to the front as allies of Robert Bruce, is not known to me. As foes of Bruce, the Macdougals

A ll the way up Tweed from a mile below Mertoun Bridge, up past the cauld where the pent water spouts and raves ceaselessly, along the bank where lies St. Boswells Golf Course, round that noble sweep where the river holds Dryburgh lovingly in the crook of its arm, up by the boulder-strewn streams above, and round the elbow by the foot suspension-bridge, past the lofty red scaurs and the hanging woods to the Monk's Ford, trout fishing—at least from the right bank—is free. And though it goes witho

A nd now we come to a once beautiful stream, of which, in the present condition of its lower stretches, it is not easy to speak with due moderation. "Deil take the ditty trading loon Wad gar the water ca' his wheel, And drift his dyes and poisons down By fair Tweed side at Ashiesteel." It is not the Tweed at Ashiesteel, however, that in this instance is injured, but the Gala at Galashiels, and Tweed below that town. "It would," says the Official Report issued in 1906 by H.M. Stationery Office, "

T wo miles up the river from Lindean you come to Selkirk. But this is not the route by which that town should be approached; by the Galashiels road, one is in the heart of Selkirk almost before one is aware of any streets. To see properly the old royal burgh clinging to the steep side of its hill, and to realise the beauty of its situation, it is necessary to come from Galashiels up Tweed by the road diverging at Rink. Thence cross Yair Bridge, go by that beautiful highway through the shaggy woo

A nd now we shall go—as they say in Selkirk—"up the Watters," a phrase which, to us of "the Forest," used of old to convey the idea of going on a vast journey. "Did ye see the Eclipse, on Monday?" asked a Selkirk man of his crony. "Man, No! I was up the Watters that day." Which reply-conveyed, perhaps not so much the feeling that an eclipse was a frivolous affair pertaining to geographically remote Selkirk alone, as that the answerer had been too deeply engaged up the waters with other business

"The Duchess mark'd his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell, That they should tend the old man well: For she had known adversity, Though born in such a high degree; In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!" Turning away now from sight of Newark, and from Foulshiels, the road sweeps winding down the Yarrow, high over wooded banks, and "... sweet in Harewood sing the birds, The sound of summer in their chords;" past H

S weet in truth flows Tweed here, as all will own who leisurely wend their way—it is too beautiful to justify hurried progress—under leafy boughs where the sun slants down in fairy pattern on a road divorced by but a narrow edge of greenest grass from the clear, hurrying river. Here, at your very hand, you may see countless I! ripples of the rising trout, that feed beneath the elms of Yair." There over against you on the far bank of Tweed is Yair itself; and on the hither side, nestling above a

W riting of Peebles in the year 1847 or 1848, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder speaks of "the singular air of decayed royalty that hangs over it, and which so strangely blends with its perfect simplicity and rurality." More than any other of the Scottish border towns, Peebles has a right to talk of "royalty." A royal poet has sung of her Beltane Feast the evidence is at least as much for, as against, acceptance of the time-honoured belief that King James I was author of "Peblis to the Play." Professor Vei

"When Zion's King was Robbed of his right His witnesses in Scotland put to flight When popish prelats and Indul- gancie Combin'd 'gainst Christ to Ruine Presbytrie All who would not unto their idols bow They socht them out and whom they found they slew For owning of Christ's cause I then did die My blood for vengeance on his en'mies did cry." And on a stone in another part of the churchyard—perhaps the grave of a grandfather and grandchild—are the quaint words: "Death pities not the aged head, N

C oming into Liddesdale by the route followed by Prince Charlie, over the hills by Note o' the Gate, one finds, a few miles past that curiously-named spot and no great distance from the road, the scene of a momentous battle of ancient times. It is claimed that it was here on Dawstane Rig the mighty struggle took place in the year 603 between Edelfrid, King of the Northumbrians, and Aidan, King of the Scots, the result of which, says Bede, writing a century and a quarter later, was that "from tha

A little further down the river we come to the Kershope Burn, here the boundary between Scotland and England. It was here, at "the Dayholme of Kershoup"—which I take to be the flat land on the Scottish side of Liddel, opposite to the mouth of the burn—that the Wardens' Meeting was held in 1596, which became afterwards so famous owing to the illegal capture by the English of Kinmont Willie. All the world knows the tale, and all the world knows how gallantly Buccleuch rescued the prisoner from Car

A pilgrimage to Bewcastle cannot be recommended to persons animated by curiosity alone; or even by a passion for the beauties of nature. From childhood the writer had a desire to behold Bewcastle, because it was the Captain of Bewcastle who, in the ballad of Jamie Telfer , in The Border Minstrelsy , made such an unlucky raid on the cows of a farmer in Ettrickdale. The very word Bewcastle seemed to re-echo the trumpets of the Wardens' Raids and the battles long ago. But when you actually find you