OS. SS eS CC 
TRANSACTIONS, 137 
the Church Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, killed Red Robert 
[John] Cuming before the high altar in 1305 ; and James Lindsey 
and Roger Kilpatrick murdered Sir Robert Cuming in the sacristy, 
and were excommunicated by John XX. in Avignon.” 
Thomas Pennant, the distinguished naturalist, made his 
second tour in Scotland in the summer of 1772. Entering Dumfries 
from the south “beyond Port Kepel,” by which I suppose he 
means Glencaple, he says: “The country on both sides of the 
river is very beautiful, the banks decorated with numerous groves 
aud villas, richly cultivated and enclosed.” Dumfries itself he 
describes as “a very well built town, containing about 5000 souls. 
It was once possessed of a large share of the tobacco 
trade, but at present has scarcely any commerce. The great 
weekly markets for black cattle are of much advantage to the 
place, and vast droves from Galloway and the shire of Ayr pass 
through on the way to the fairs in Norfolk and Suffolk.” The 
two churches are described as “remarkably neat.” The author 
then proceeds: “ Had a beautiful view of an artificial waterfall 
just in front of a bridge originally built by Devorgilla. It con- 
sists of nine arches.” Pennant’s brief notice of the town concludes 
with the mention of “a fine cireumambient prospect of the 
charming windings of the Nith towards the sea, the town of Dum- 
fries, Terregles, a house of the Maxwells, and a rich vale towards 
the north” (probably from the Corbelly Hill). 
Robert Heron, described as a miscellaneous writer—I suppose 
what used to be known as a bookseller’s hack—made a journey 
through the western counties of Scotland in the autumn of 1792, 
the second year of Burns’s residence in Dumfries. He describes 
the environs of the town as being in a high state of cultivation, 
with gentlemen’s seats scattered around it as around Edinburgh 
and Glasgow. Since the beginning of that century, he says, it 
had risen from a state of considerable depression to considerable 
wealth and population, corresponding to the improvement of the 
surrounding country. The greater part of the High Street and of 
the older parts of the town would then be much as they are now, 
barring the ornate shop-fronts and the plate glass ; but the great 
towns not having yet risen to opulence, the streets would look 
handsome, as he describes them, by comparison. He praises the 
beautiful and advantageous situation of the town, says the streets 
are well lighted, but, unlike Dr Pococke thirty years before, thinks 
