JULY 151 



LIX 



Standing on Auchensauch Hill, in the upper ward of 

 Lanarkshire, one may view the Black Burn flowing 

 eastward towards the Clyde, and on the 

 west the Douglas Water taking a northward 

 course to join the same river lower down near Lanark. 

 The renown of a name comes from the acts of those 

 who bear it ; yet it is difficult to believe that, had the 

 lords of this land chosen as their title, not the Celtic 

 name of Douglas, but its Saxon equivalent Blackburn, 

 chivalrous and historic association could have woven 

 themselves so closely round it as they have round 

 Douglas the tender and true. There are a hundred 

 streams in the north called Douglas and Blackburn 

 (the meaning is identical); but this Douglas this 

 sluggish, loamy current winding through its green 

 upland dale is famous above all other ' black- waters,' 

 for it has yielded its name to the most illustrious house 

 in Scotland. 



Of the original stronghold 



' The aventurous castell of Douglas, 

 That to kep sa peralous was ' 



not a trace now remains. The present house is part 

 of a magnificent design undertaken by the Duke of 

 Douglas in the eighteenth century, to replace an earlier 

 structure battered down by Cromwell in 1651. Fired 

 by that ardour for stone and lime which has told so 

 banefully on the fortune of many a Scottish laird less 

 able to sustain it, the Duke commissioned the architect 

 Adam to build him a castle ten feet greater in height, 



