Mr Mentcath ofi the Geology (>f Nithsdale. 321 



the most picturesque passes in the south of Scotland. This 

 is denominated the Pass of Dalveen. By much ingenuity 

 and labour, a beautifully winding road has been cut out 

 along the sides of the mountains ; and from the great height 

 to which it gradually conducts, the traveller, with no little tre- 

 pidation, looks down on a small stream or burn, winding like 

 a silver thread, about 300 feet beneath him. 



Nowhere, perhaps, in Great Britain is a scene more pleas- 

 ing, more placid, more interesting, presented, than in this 

 long, narrow, mountain pass. The sides of its hills, without 

 any clothing of wood, are smooth, covered with a short velvet 

 turf, fresh and green during the greater part of the year, af- 

 fording abundance of food to the flocks which graze their decli- 

 vities. In the bottom of the valley, between these agreeably 

 shelving hills, is the Carron Water, here but a small rivulet, 

 pure and hmpid, and, like the many other burns of Scotland, 

 characterizes and enlivens this romantic dell. 



Few more delightful scenes are offered to the lover of land- 

 scape, than he will enjoy in lingering in this beautiful pass of 

 Dalveen, in a calm summer''s evening, when the lights and long 

 shadows of a setting sun fall on its mountain sides, enlivened by 

 numerous variously grouped flocks. 



To the southward of Dalveen, in the same range of hills, the 

 Lowders, is another pass, called the Walpath, communicating 

 with England and the northern parts of Scotland, through 

 which the Romans carried their road, and of which traces still re- 

 main. This road, scarcely at present more than a tract, passes 

 close to the village of Durisdeer, in the church of which the 

 traveller will be interested by some fine sculpture in the tomb 

 of the Queensbery family. It is, however, far inferior in wild 

 picturesque scenery to that of Dalveen ; and, offering many ob- 

 stacles to the modern road-engineer, was deemed by him unfit 

 for opening a communication through the Lowders into Lanark- 

 shire. Dalveen Pass was therefore preferred ; and happy it is 

 for the traveller that utility and sweet pastoral scenery could 

 be united. 



There is more wood in this basin than in the two we have just 

 described ; the banks of the Carron, the Cample, the Scar, and 

 the Shinnel, tributaries of the Nith before it quits the valley 

 of Closeburn^ being all beautifully fringed with natural wood. 



