EXTENT. 6 



of productive virtue, there are many tracts of heath and of " mo- 

 rishe evill ground of htle valore," — so many, and so dispersed, 

 that few farms can be said to be without its parcel of waste land. 

 Extensive muirs too occupy portions of the very centre, while 

 the elevated boundary is clothed with heath, or with a green 

 sward intermingled with heath, and having oases of ranker growth 

 to freshen the prospect. The Tweed and its tributaries, glancing 

 at rare intervals on the eye, meander through the basin, opening 

 up valleys of various breadths and of great beauty ; while haughs 

 and deans and glens, each threaded by its own burn or runlet, 

 are found everywhere, affording an endless series of haunts to 

 the naturalist who may love to court their intricate and receding 

 secrets. The district, as a whole, is as fair a one, to my partial 

 eye, as ever gladdened the heart of man*. 



Our district may be roughly estimated to contain about a 

 thousand square miles, or about 700,000 acres, of which one 

 half may be arable, while the other half is hill-pasture, moor, or 

 waste. Mr. Blackadder, in 1809, distributed the lands of Ber- 

 wickshire into the lowlands of the Merse containing 100,226 

 acres, the lowlands of Lauderdale 7280, the lowlands of Cock- 

 burnspath 2200, and the hill lands of Lauderdale and Lammer- 

 moor 175,734 acresf. The Liberties of Berwick contain about 

 4680 acres J. North Durham with Glendale Ward in North- 

 umberland, and what we embrace of Hoxburghshire, viz. 

 the parishes of Yetholm, Sprouston, Ednam, Stitchell, Kelso, 



* Mr. Arthur Bruce says of the Merse : — " This whole tract of country, 

 viewed from a central eminence, Langton Edge suppose, exhibits to the 

 wondering eye a scene beyond description. The deception from this high 

 elevation is so great, that this large tract, from near Kelso to Berwick, six- 

 teen or eighteen miles, and nine over, appears a dead flat, chequered with 

 numberless seats and plantations ; the whole landscape assuming the aj)- 

 pearance of a garden." Gen. View, p. 102. Burns describes the view from 

 Langton Edge as " a glorious view," and it has local celebrity. Pennant 

 praises that from Soutra Hill (Tour in Scotland, 1772, ii. p. 261 ) ; and the 

 one from the heights above Chirnside is well described by the Rev. J. 

 Edgar in Stat. Ace. Berwicks. p. 362. The views from Halidon, Sanson- 

 Seal, and Hume Castle are justly admired. In 1566 Queen Mary was con- 

 ducted to Halulon to gratify the wish she had expressed of enjoying, from 

 its heights, a view of Berwick. Carr's Coldiugham, p. 67- And from Ber- 

 wick Castle, Sept. 29, 1850, Queen Victoria surveyed, with undisguised 

 admiration, the noble prospect westwards. 



t See the map of " Berwickshire from actual Survey, by John Black- 

 adder," published Nov. 1, 1797- This admiiable map is the basis of all 

 subsequent ones, of which, perhaps, the best is that published in Sept. 1826, 

 by Sharp, Greenwood and Fowler. 



X There is a good map of the " Liberties," and of the annexed portions 

 of the Borough of Berwick, in the Report to the Board of Health by Robert 

 Rawlinson, Esq., 1850. We shoidd also refer to the large " Map of Nor- 

 ham and Islandshire and the Liberties of Berwick-upon-Tweed," by Robert 

 Rule, 1824. 



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