DUMFRIES. — RETROSPECTIVE SKETCH. 189 



season, we forbear pre-occupying the ground, and refer our readers in the mean 

 time to the statistics of the county, and other descriptive works. In taking 

 leave of Ayrshire, we are encouraged to hope that, in the specimens here pre- 

 sented, a fair though desultory view has been given of its most remarkable 

 scenes ; and, that what we leave untouched, will be taken up by others who 

 have taste, talents, and inclination to do it justice. 



COUNTIES OF DUMFRIES AND ROXBURGH. 



" There's als much vertue sonce and pith 

 In Annan, or the water o' Niih 

 Whilk quietly slips by Dumfries, 

 Als ony water in all Greece." — Cleland, 1697. 



The county of Dumfries, like that of Ayr, is divided into three principal 

 districts — Nithsdale, Annandale, and Eskdale — which form the southern, or 

 Solway frontier of Scotland. It comprises part of those " debateable lands" con- 

 cerning which so much has been written, and which kept the wit and weapons 

 of their inhabitants so long on the alert. Its hills and dales, its rivers and lakes 

 and morasses, speak forcibly of the past, and, with history, legend, and tradition, 

 furnish a rich treat to the inquisitive stranger. Its uplands, still furrowed with 

 the intrenchments of ancient Rome, whose standards once floated on their high 

 places ; its dales, sprinkled with the decayed strongholds -of ancient chiefs ; its 

 lakes, reflecting those massive ruins in which the Bruce once marshalled his 

 Border chivalry ; its rivers, flowing in strength and beauty, shaded with woods, 

 enlivened with towns and villages, and adorned with noble mansions, are all 

 " known to song and story." Its mosses,* covering the tract of primeval forests, 

 or the deserted bed of the sea, reveal from time to time those arcana of nature, and 

 those relics of human art, which carry the mind to times where history is lost in 



• The Lochar Moss, a space of ten miles in length by three in breadth — and now under the operation 

 of the Steam-plough — rests upon a deep stratum of sea-sand. In this, not only shells and marine depo- 

 sits abound, but fragments of ancient shipping, with iron grapples or anchors, have been repeatedly found; 

 also some ancient canoes or boats — one, in particular, is formed out of the trunk of a large oak, hollowed 

 apparently by fire. A fine specimen of this kind was lately found on the Sussex coast, and is now in the 

 British Museum. As an example of *' moving moss," we may mention the inundation of the " Soiway 

 Moss," which overwhelmed a fertile tract of eight hundred acres. It is one of the most remarkable pheno- 

 mena on record — similar to those in Switzerland — and popularly known as the " Solway Flow.'* 



VOL. I. So 



