REPORTS ON EXCURSIONS. S9 



of the word — the wet or dry ditch of a fortress — must be 

 dismissed, and we must revert to the original meaning, for the 

 motes of which I have to speak are not hollows but heights, not 

 the trenches of fortresses, but the fortresses themselves, and 

 consist essentially of conical flat-topped mounds, which were 

 defended by palisades." 



The river here has worn a deep channel 50 ft. or so below 

 the surrounding country, and winds along, with its alluvial haughs 

 now on one side and now on the other. Just below the mote it 

 sweeps round from flowing a little east of north to almost due 

 south, then changes to northwest, continuing in this direction to 

 below the Brigs o' Doon. The valley is thus well sheltered, and the 

 big mass of the brown Carrick Hill and Newark Hill protects it 

 from the prevailing south-westerly winds. 



Doonholm is intimately associated with Robert Burns. In his 

 autobiography he says, " For the first six or seven years of my 

 life, my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small 

 estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr." In •' The Life and Works 

 of Robert Burns, edited by Robert Chambers, revised by William 

 Wallace," there is a note appended stating tliat this gentleman 

 was Mr. William Fergusson, of Doonholm, a retired London 

 physician, who was at that time provost of Ayr. " On this estate, 

 which he had acquired from the town in 1755, and which is now 

 (1896) the property of Lord Blackburn, long one of the most 

 eminent judges in the Court of Appeal, is an avenue of Elms, the 

 planting of which is attributed by tradition to William Burness." 



I mentioned this tradition to the gardener, who pointed out a 

 row of limes running at right angles to the river, as those said to 

 have been so planted. One of the largest of these measures 

 12 ft. 7^ ins. in circumference, at 5 ft. up, with a bole of 

 10 ft. It seems not unlikely that these trees may have been 

 planted under the supervision of the poet's father. But as 

 Dr. Wallace calls the trees " Elms," I wrote the gardener a few 

 days after our visit giving him a copy of the foregoing quotations, 

 and asking him if there are any Elms on the estate to which the 

 tradition might refer, or if the use of the word " Elms " is a 

 mistake for Limes. He replied, " I have interviewed Mr. James 

 Ramsay, 78 years of age, who has been resident on Doonholm 

 Estate for 56 years. Be the William Burns trees, Mr. Ramsay 



