136 Transactions. 



made up to tliem by tho Gcvcrmneiit. . . . Over the river 

 near the town is a small mount, which would not hold at the top 

 above thirtj' people. It is called The Moat, and it is supposed 

 that the heads of the place held their meetings here and promulged 

 their laws to the people. There is a very fine prospect from it of 

 the country round. I saw from it Lincluden, an old nunnery, and 

 near it is a monastery called Holy Rhood (qy.. Holy wood), and at 

 some distance from Dumfries what is called New Abby, and in the 

 records Abbatia dulci cordis. (Johannes de Sacrobosco, an eminent 

 mathematician of tho thirtesnth century, whose treatise, ' De 

 Sphrera Mundi,' continued to be used in the schools for nearly four 

 hundred years, is believed to have been originally a professed 

 brother of the Convent of Holy wood.) Not far from Dumfries is 

 a clia^xd called Christo, where St. Christoj^her Setin is buried, who 

 was beheaded (though a Scotchman and no subject) by Edward the 

 First." It will be observed that the Bishop's history is not of the 

 most accurate character, but the notices in his next journey are 

 nearer to what is generally received. 



Dr Pococke's next recorded journey ten years afterwards was 

 a more extended one, and included the Orkneys and Western 

 Islands. It is described in three large folio volumes in MS. In 

 the beginning of May, 1760, he arrived in Dumfries from Port- 

 patrick. " I came from Newabbey," he writes, " six miles near 

 the Nith, the old Noiras or Nidius, having a bog to the right and 

 pleasant hills to tie left, to Dumfries, in Nithesdale, where I was 

 in 1747 (1). This town carried on a great to])acco trade until the 

 Tobacco Act passed, which destroyed that commerce, and the 

 people being grown rich, and their money not employed in trade, 

 they have lately adorned the town with beautiful buildings of the 

 red hewn freestone, and the streets are most exceedingly well 

 paved (!). They have a handsome town-house, and all is kept very 

 clean ; so that it is one of the handsomest towns in Great Britain 

 (and Pococke had travelled over the most of it), and very 

 pleasantly situated on the Nith, over which there is a large bridge ; 

 and as the Assizes are held here for all the south part of Scotland, 

 the town is much frequented by lawyers. The shiijping lie under 

 Screfel (sic), eight miles below Dumfries, and come up three miles 

 higher to unload at Glenteyrel (Glencaple V) Here was a friary 

 of Conventuals, founded by the same Devorgilla (referring to a 

 previous account of Sweetheart Abbey), in which John Duns 

 Scotus took upon him the haljit, who died in 1308 at Cologn. In 



