102 Notes on the Catrail. By Miss Russell. 



bank which, certainly ran across it till the last century. In the 

 sense of boundary, it may be old enough to refer to the national 

 frontier. There is no spring in the neighbourhood of the Eink 

 fort, or fortified village ; but it only struck me lately, the supply 

 of water must have been from the small Mossend loch, drained 

 within the last ten or twelve years. A line of rampart can still 

 be traced running down from near the entrance towards the loch, 

 alongside one of the field dykes. The loch seems to have been part 

 of the line of defence ; a faint line is or was visible running 

 down to it at right angles from the work above Hollinbush. 

 This part is hke a good sized cart-road cut along the hill for 

 thirty or forty yards. North of Hollinbush, two faint lines are 

 traceable where the trench has been long ago destroyed by old 

 cultivation. Gordon, who begins at the Eink, had evidently not 

 seen the part remaining, I believe perfect, on Mossilee ; I have 

 never succeeded in seeing it either ; in fact the sequestered situ- 

 ation of both this and the part on Sunderland Hall hill, may 

 have tended to preserve them ; but they seem both well-known, 

 as earthen ramparts and ditches. Of the fort at Mossilee I be- 

 lieve nothing but the site remains. The name of Wallace's 

 Putting Stane on Meigle hill doubtless indicates a confused tradi- 

 tion of the Cymri. Hut-circles of early habitation have been 

 found on Mossilee, and interments in stone cists have been dis- 

 closed during the recent great extension of the streets of Gala- 

 shiels. 



I doubt whether the Catrail ever extended into the valley of 

 the Gala ; the trenches on the top of the steep bank north-west 

 of Kilnknowe seem rather those of a fort ; and a narrow line 

 above the road, now nearly obliterated, stops nearly at the Tor- 

 woodlee march, so was probably a fence. If the Catrail ever 

 ran up to the fort at the Harrigait Head, above Torwoodlee, it 

 must have been obliterated by the road made in 1780 — that 

 Pennant must have travelled by. The fort is perfect except that 

 the ditch has been filled up with the stones of the rampart. There 

 was a small village just below till within the present century. 

 North of Torwoodlee, there is a fort of straight lines at Caitha, 

 on the east side of the valley ; and I notice similar lines at Bow. 

 At Caitha the road from Edinburgh to Selkirk and the south, 

 turns off over the moor ; and between the Tweed and Gala there 

 are remains of a large fort on the rising-ground of Caddonlee, in 

 which the top of a quern of true Italian lava has been found ; 



