Br. Johnston's Journal of a visit to Jar dine Hall. 415 



knowledge, he has a difficulty of explaining or comprehending. 

 I never saw such capital specimens of the Scotch Fir as grow 

 here, and the Beeches too are superlative ; all Mr. Maxwell's 

 woods were indeed thriving. The hills which bound the 

 grounds are clothed with young wood ; and as they are 

 granitic, very pretty, and much broken up into scaurs and 

 ravines, they presented a very tempting field to a botanist, 

 which we must leave others to investigate. From the hills 

 about us large quantities of granite are quarried and exported 

 to Liverpool and other places. We were told that some 

 had been sent even to America. Yesterday we had to 

 dinner, and this morning to breakfast, a dish of Spirlings 

 or Smelts ; the first occasion on which I had eaten this 

 small but delicate fish. It is taken in abundance in the Urr, 

 a small river, or rather muddy canal, which bounds the 

 grounds of Munches, and up which the tide runs with con- 

 siderable velocity. The water is turbid and drumlie with a 

 fine mud, that makes a smooth bottom to the water. On its 

 banks the Scirpus maritimus grows in profusion ; but to 

 remind me of Munches, I preferred gathering a specimen of 

 the common Polypody from Craig-Turrock, a picturesque 

 rocky mound in front of the house, and very prettily orna- 

 mented with various shrubs and flowers. About mid-day 

 left Munches and again passed through Dalbeattie ; when 

 we diverged into a new road, which took us straight to 

 Dumfries. The drive was at first not very interesting, and 

 we had few brambles on the road side. After several miles 

 we entered the pass of the Long- wood ; a pass between the 

 bills, which gives one a lively idea of the difficulties an army 

 must encounter, in forcing a passage through such a road, 

 defended by troops on the banks on each side, and on the 

 turns in front and behind. The passage is fine and interest- 

 ing, and the descent very steep on the Dumfries side. Well, 

 we are once more in the beautiful town of Dumfries, and we 

 take a stroll down its quay ; and after satisfying our admira- 

 tion of the views up and down the Nith, we visited the 

 churchyard, remarkable for the great number of its expen- 

 sive tombstones, engraved with epitaphs of all sorts and 

 sizes. Some of the stones possess considerable interest ; such 

 as those which commemorate the deaths of the Scotch Mar- 

 tyrs, and the benefits which the town had derived from the 

 services of a Provost of the time of King James the 6th. 

 But the principal object of interest in the churchyard is the 



2 A 



