28 Camps oh Forts. 



rible explosives are to be hrovight into use. capable at one fell 

 swoop of destroying- a town, a eanip, or an army, is a (juestiou 

 beyond the scope of this little essay, but it may safely be said that 

 every great development and improvement in death-dealing 

 weapons tend, by their efficiency and terrifying influence, to act 

 directly in the cause of peace. 



III. — Notes of a Visit to some Camps or Forts in tlic Parislies of 

 Drvfc and Lochmaben. By the Hev. John II. Thomson, of 

 Hightae. 



On Thursday, 19th September, I set out in search ctf three camps 

 or forts given in the Ordnance inch-to-a-mile map as about a mile 

 and a half to the east of Hightae, in the parish of Dryfe, in the 

 property of the Duke of Buccleuch. The Annan separates Loch- 

 maben parish from Dryfe, and as there is no bridge across it at 

 Hightae, I had to make a long detour by Shillahill of nearly four 

 miles in length, before I got ti> lioberthill, a farm opposite to 

 Hightae, on the road between Lockerbie and Dalton. Here I 

 inquired at the gamekeeper's house for the camjjs, and was at once 

 told by an intelligent man that one of them was near at hand, on 

 the hill to the south, less than half a mile away, and that the 

 others were not far distant. Lideed, he pointed out their sites. 

 The hill is a rising ground that rises to fifty or sixty feet from the 

 level plain through which the Annan meanders. It runs duel 

 south for about two miles, and begins not far from the roat] 

 between Lochmaben and Lockerbie. At its foot, on the west sidejj 

 it is .skirted by the Bengali burn. There was little water in the 

 burn, for it had been \ dry September, so it was easily crossed.! 

 As I crossed I could see the rampart of the fort in the clump o| 

 trees on the brow of the hill about a hundred yards away. The 

 trees seemed as if they had been planted shortly after the visit ol 

 the Ordnance Survey, for they are not marked upon the raaji firs^ 

 published in 18G4. They now entirely enclose and cover over th^ 

 camp, and make its centre dark and gloomy even in the bright 

 sunshine. A carefully-kept hedge fences the clump. I walked 

 round and round the camp, sometimes on its inner, and sometimes 

 on its outer rampart. The ditch varies from four to six, and eveal 

 eight, feet in depth, and its ramparts look as if taken out of ibj 

 Its circle seeined in size to be twice as large as that of the camp at 



