53 



A SUMMEK KAMBLE ON CHEVIOT. 



On a magnificent summer's day — one of the finest our 

 temperate zone is capable of producing — when a blazing hot 

 sun is tempered with a cool northerly breeze, we set out for 

 an ascent of Cheviot. An hour's walk over the outlying 

 spurs brought us to the foot of the Caldgates valley, one of 

 the most charming moorland glens on the Borders — certainly 

 the prettiest on the granite formation — and far more variedly 

 luxuriant than the valley of the College, the alternative route 

 by which Cheviot is approached from the other side. 



One almost wonders why the natural beauties of our own 

 land are nowadays so neglected by travellers. Without at 

 all depreciating the grandeur of other countries or the charm 

 of foreign travel, it does seem regrettable that our fine wild 

 scenery at home should be ignored and all but unknown. 

 The route up the Caldgates glen leads through three or four 

 miles of lovely moorland scenery, almost Swiss in character ; 

 the track following the course of the burn, a rocky, splashing 

 streamlet alive with trout, and fringed with patches of gorse 

 and straggled belts of natural wood — birch, oak, alder, and 

 rowan. The bloom of the hawthorn was perfect — each bush 

 a canopy of spotless white as pure as new-fallen snow ; the 

 mossy banks and braes glowed with the purple of the wild 

 thyme and heath, and were alive with grasshoppers and 

 small chestnut-winged butterflies. Above the woods, on 

 either side, the heathery hills rose steep and rugged, great 

 naked rocks standing out here and there as abrupt as ruined 

 castles. The air resounded with the notes of Willow-Wren, 

 Pting-Ouzel, Wheatear, and Sandpiper, and overhead floated 

 scores of white Gulls from Pallinsburn. 



The charm of the moors lies in their pristine beauty of 

 creation, unaltered and unalterable by man. His presence, 



