84 A NEW FLOEA OF 



geography is more like what is usual. Prom Ridlees Cairn (1346 

 feet) to Simonside (1447 feet), a distance of 15 miles, stretches 

 a bank of hill of an altogether different character from those we 

 have left behind on the west, heathery and plateau-like, forming 

 at first the watershed between the Coquet and the Reed, and 

 afterwards between the Coquet and upper part of the "Wansbeck. 

 Harbottle Lough, a lonely little tarn in the heart of hUl a mile 

 south-west of the village of Harbottle, with flocks of screaming 

 sea-gulls wheeling about it in summer-time, and swamps of Co- 

 marum, Menyanthes, Equisetum limosum, and cotton-grass, and 

 sweeps of heathery moor fragrant with gale and juniper, stretch- 

 ing far away towards Redesdale on the south, and ridges of grey 

 gritstone crag shutting it in on every side, is well worthy of a 

 visit. The edge of moor at this point is barely 1000 feet above 

 sea-level, and the gradual slopes about Harbottle and Holystone 

 are covered with fir-plantations, and in one place a natural wood 

 of oak and birch stretches down to the road-side. At Holystone, 

 close to the village, is the well of Paulinus, a small spring of 

 water, crystal- clear, one of the places where the indefatigable 

 missionary baptised an indefinite number of converts, as a statue 

 and inscription commemorate. All along this part the north side 

 of the river has nothing of the mountain aspect ; but above Eoth- 

 bury, where the stream has sunk to under 100 yards above the 

 sea-level, we strike the sandstone ridge in its northward course 

 transversely, the hUls again attaining a height of 1000 feet, and 

 rising above the town with considerable steepness, crested with 

 edges of gritstone crag. A streamlet which flows down from 

 this hill is called Hebden Bum. Simonside is a characteristic 

 feature of I^orthumbrian physical geography, a great mass of hill 

 rising up in the very centre of the county to a height of 1500 

 feet, and commanding nearly the whole of it at a single view. 

 From the loosely-piled cairn of stones that marks the highest 

 point the eye stretches on the north to the Cheviot ridge, Cheviot 

 and Hedgehope standing out like two camel-shaped humps pro- 

 minently in front, to the west a slightly lower continuous ridge 

 sweeping away to bound the view for a quarter of a circle, and 

 on the east a spur prolonged from them in the direction of the 



