16 THE EASTERN BORDERS. 



memorial specimen to the local botanist's herbarium*; nor as it 

 approaches its goal does the Tweed lose historical associations, 

 albeit the beauty of its banks wanes under the influences which 

 affect a tidal river. Leaving Paxton it enters within English 

 ground, level and unattractive on the north, but with a consider- 

 able bank on the south side, which is partially wooded. Here 

 it receives the Whiteadder, when making a reach northwards, 

 the stream bends back again so as almost to describe two-thirds 

 of a circle, and thus washes the walls of " our good town " of 

 Berwick, and enters the seaf. 



The Leader loses itself in the Tweed where the latter enters 

 our demesne and forms a considerable portion of our north-west 

 boundary- line. It has its rise in the Lammermoor Hills, and 

 runs in a lively stream through a cheerful valley, to which it 

 gives the name of Lauderdale. Pennant describes it as " a long 

 narrow bottom, uninclosed and destitute of wood, but abundant 

 in corn J." This was in 1772, when its comparative fertility 

 was almost proverbial : 



" Then Flora, queen, with mantle green, 

 Casts off her former sorrow. 

 And vows to dwell with Ceres' sel'. 

 On Leader-Haughs and Yarrow." 



" The two farms of Blainslee have been for generations so cele- 

 brated for the oats grown upon them, that their produce is entirely 

 sold for seed§." Leader-haughs are as fertile as ever, but they 

 have lost much of their pastoral character, and, perhaps, scarcely 

 support their ballad fame. " They are everywhere enclosed, and 

 an immense extent of plantation has taken place in various parts 

 of the valley, so that there is no want of shade along the banks 

 and slopes, and several handsome residences have arisen. Of 

 these, perhaps, the house and grounds of Carolside may be pre- 

 eminently mentioned.'' Above Carolside is Birkhillside and 

 Chappie ; and a little way below it the village of Earlston, — the 

 birth-place of Thomas the Rhymer, whose rude tower of residence 

 still stands on a beautiful haugh on the east side of the Leader, 

 half-way between the river and the town. A very little lower, 



* Pennant gives short but interesting notices of them in his Tour of 

 1772, ii. p. 273-285. 



t Camden's description of the Tweed's course is short and cm-ious : — 

 " This river rises with a copious stream out of the Scottish mountains, and 

 for a long time meanders among the horsemen and marauders on the 

 borders, to give no harsher name to a set of men, whose only property is, 

 as one says, in their swords." — Gough's edit. iii. p. 497. 



+ Tour, ii. p. 261. 



§ Sir Thomas Dick Lauder on Scottish Rivers, in Tait's Magazine, Oct. 

 1847, p. 653-656. 



