56 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



smooth green slopes are furrowed and excoriated with black 

 fissures and peat-cracks, like the pencillings on a Bunting's 



egg- 



The bold black outline of the Simonside range limits the 

 discernible view southward, though beyond it are visible 

 blue vistas stretching away beyond the Tyne. Eastward, 

 nearly the whole seaboard of Northumberland lies in view — 

 Holy Island, with its white sands shining in the sunlight 

 against the blue sea ; the ancient Border fortresses of Bara- 

 borough, Dunstanborough, and the Lindisfarne ; the wooded 

 heights of Chillingham and the fatal field of Flodden ; 

 farther away, the Fames and Coquet Island, dimly seen 

 through a slight sea-haze. 



Few spots on the British coast are more interesting both 

 physically and historically than this corner of North 

 Northumberland. The singular rock formation of the Fames 

 — the sandy wastes and dreary mud-flats of Holy Island, 

 covered and uncovered twice every day by the sea — 



" The tide did now its flood mark gain, 

 And girdled in the saint's domain ; 

 For, with the ebb and flow, its style 

 Varies from continent to isle ; 

 Dry shod, o'er sands, twice every day, 

 The pilgrim to the slirine finds way ; 

 Twice every day the waves efface 

 Of staves and sandalled feet the trace." 



Marmion. 



Here, twelve centuries ago, St. Cuthbert established the 

 cradle of Northern Christianity, choosing the sequestered 

 Lindisfarne for his island home, hard by where, to-day as 

 then, the surf breaks white on its basalt barriers, and the 

 Cormorants go to fish for codling in the swirls of the 

 northern sea. 



In all, five counties lie stretched out before one, a wild 

 landscape, the scenes of bloody days and of ages of human 

 strife. Thence we ramble along the crest to a rocky peak 

 where Arkhope Cairn marks the actual boundary. Here 

 England and Scotland arc divided by a mountain gorge as 

 wild and bold as can be seen in the three kingdoms — its 

 sheer, smooth slopes descend some 1,500 ft. on either side. 



