.310 Anniversary Address. 



Diploicia canescens adheres closely to the rock. The swifts 

 shriek round the turrets, as they pass, intermingled with 

 other swallows. The Club's meeting places for the season 

 could not be surpassed for points of view ; and the panorama 

 from Hume Castle does not yield to any of them, for its extent 

 and variety, its rich culturedjbeauty, or the hills which hem 

 it round on every side. 



" After the Club had'enjoyed the prospect, they assembled 

 in the interior to listen to an article by Mr Tait on Hume 

 Castle ; of which the principal and most valuable part con- 

 sisted of a copy, belonging to Mr George Logan, tenant of 

 Humehall, of an interesting rental of the lands of Hume, 

 when they were sold by the Earl of Home, 19th February, 

 1766, to Hugh, Earl of Marchmont. The lands were then 

 minutely subdivided, and held by about sixty-nine small 

 tenants, and very few of the rents were so high as one pound 

 a-year. The whole extent of the property is 2100 acres, and 

 is now held by five tenants. The rental in 1766 was 

 £410 10s. 3£d.; in 1872, £3153. Mr Logan himself was 

 present to point out the local topography, in which he is 

 particularly versant. On the platform before the entrance to 

 the Castle, are some foundations, which according to tradi- 

 tion were * Cospatrick's Castle ' ; perhaps one of the ( burly 

 byggynges bauld ' that f Wallace wight ' cast down, accord- 

 ing to Blind Harry. The castle garden lay on the glacis 

 southwards, where some lines of ash- trees follow the van- 

 ished boundary wall. The village itself, as the upturned 

 foundations testify, stood also on the southern flank of the 

 hill, beneath the castle guns. The new proprietor gathered 

 the cottages up from the fields and from amidst the small 

 plots of ground, and pitched them in a long unpicturesque 

 row by the side of the public road, where we now behold 

 them. Several more of them, such as they are, have since 

 gone to ruin, and been swept away. The population 

 deteriorated ; and it was long a popular reproach to be one 

 of the ' Homers (spoon-makers) of Hume.' At one time it 



