NIMRO&S NORTHERN TOUR. 69 



country, as well as upon the hounds that are now hunting it 

 confined, of course, to my short experience of each. 



It is difficult to speak in relation to hunting, of a county so 

 varied on its surface as Berwickshire is, which may be divided 

 into three separate descriptions of country, taking that word in 

 the sense accepted by the fox-hunter. But as far as my know- 

 ledge of it extends, it bears a strong resemblance to Worcester- 

 shire, and particularly so as regards the varieties of it. For ex- 

 ample : The country in the Lammermuir district may be com- 

 pared to that in the neighbourhood of the Malvern or Bredon 

 hills, very difficult of ascent, but chiefly old turf, in parts clothed 

 with heath, and therefore favourable to scent. Now Cockburn 

 Law, of which I had a bit of a taste the first day I hunted in 

 Berwickshire, is nine hundred feet above the level of the sea, and 

 there are likewise a few more chokers in its neighbourhood. 

 Then again, farther on, you have a surface very similar to the 

 Abberley Hills, in Worcestershire, Lord Foley's side of the 

 county, chequered with hill and dale, what may be called wav- 

 ing unequal ground, but still rideable after hounds, though 

 strongly fenced and sticky. Lastly, the Merse, a low and ex- 

 tremely fertile district, running down to the Tweed and on to- 

 wards Roxburghshire, deep, and strongly enclosed with a good 

 deal of plough, in conjunction with its high state of cultivation, 

 has a close resemblance to the vale of Evesham, in Worcester- 

 shire, called the garden of England and (as the Merse is of 

 Berwickshire) the best part of Worcestershire for hounds* but 

 very severe for horses. Both countries, however, at certain sea- 

 sons of the year are punishers to ride over. But taking Berwick- 

 shire upon the whole, although I cannot call it the sportsman's 

 Vale of Cashmere, as I called Leicestershire, or even the Mont- 

 pellier of Scotch hunting countries, it struck me, taking it all 

 in all, as being the best country for hounds I saw in Scotland. 



It appears Berwickshire has been hunted beyond the memory 

 of man. In the year 1740, for example, by Mr. Lambsdain, of 

 Blanerne, and coming nearer to present times, and jointly with 

 Roxburghshire, by the late Mr. Baird, father to Sir David 

 Baird, and Mr. Baillie, of Mellerstain, of whom I have already 

 spoken, each of whom hunted it for many years the former 



* "The Merse is remarkable," says the author of the Picture of Scat- 

 land, "as being the largest piece of level ground in this mountain king- 

 dom. It is twenty miles long, and ten broad. The whole is so fertile, 

 -so well enclosed, and so beautiful, that, seen from any of the very slight 

 eminences into which it here and there swells, it looks like a vast garden, 

 or rather perhaps like what the French call une ferine ornt'e" 



