NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 101 



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 knowledge of it extends, it bears a strong 

 resemblance to Worcestershire, and particularly so as regards the varie- 

 ties of it. For example -.—The country in the Lammermuir district may 

 be compared to that in the neighbourhood of the Malvern or Bredon hills, 

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

 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, further on, you have a surface very simi- 

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

 county, chequered with hill and dale, — what may be called waving un- 

 equal ground, but still rideable after hounds, though strongly fenced and 

 sticky. Lastly, the Merse, a low and extremely fertile district, running 

 down to the Tweed and on towards 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 Berwick- 

 shire) the best part of Worcestershire for hounds* but very severe for 

 horses. Both countries, however, at certain seasons of the year are 

 punishers to ride over. But taking Berwickshire upon the whole, 



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

 " as heing the largest piece of level ground in this mountain kingdom. 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 unefermo ornic." 



