208 Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 



toll house and ascended to a height called the Mount, where the 

 view of the encircling hills is free of every obstruction, and the 

 best to be got in a clear day. It includes the Brampton Fells, 

 the hills of the Lake country, Criffel far away, the truncated peak 

 of Burnswark, Whita beside Langholm, Tinnis, and several 

 prominences of unknown nomenclature in Wauchope and Esk- 

 dales. Between us and Tinnis lay the Tarras morass, so noted 

 in Border story, as a place of refuge for the thieves of the 

 Debateable Land, who were extirpated by Sir Robert Cary ; not 

 wild and forbidding as we might expect, but now for the most 

 part cultivated, and showing smiling farm houses and green 

 fields, and sheltering plantations. The farms here as in 

 Cumberland are much subdivided into small compartments, and 

 the houses are invariably white washed, and dark slated. 



Of Burnswark and Criffel the following is told by Mr H. Kerr, 

 who is a native of Dumfries. '"Burnswark and Criffel' were 

 once household words in Dumfriesshire, and if two youngsters 

 happened to quarrel, a not unfrequent occurrence, one or more of 

 their mothers would inevitably exclaim, ' Thae laddies wad feet 

 (fight) if the ane was on the tap o' Burnswark, and the ither on 

 Criffel.' " Burnswark might be 20 or 30 miles away, but far 

 beyond it lay the glittering Solway in the bright sunshine, and 

 still more remote the Cumberland coast, traversed by a train 

 emitting white smoke. Carlisle was within nearer ken as was 

 indicated by its white smoke. 



Passing Byreburnside farm, we proceeded onwards to the head 

 of Byreburn glen with Gilnockie school and the mansion of 

 Claygate in the distance, and turned westward down the glen 

 going under the railway viaduct spanning the Byre burn, which 

 is upwards of 100 feet high. Borings for coal have been made 

 in this glen. It is richly wooded with Oaks, Firs, and Beeches, 

 and contains some good trees, especially a beechen avenue near 

 the foot, now being thinned out. About the middle is a fine 

 water-fall — the Fairy Linn, which has been rather spoiled by a 

 recent slip of sandstone. As we passed we noticed Mdica uniflora 

 and Hieracium boreale near the road. The Guelder Rose was 

 again prevalent. We issued from this shady ravine on to the 

 Langholm road, below the Lee Mote, an elevated clear space on 

 the top of the bank of the shape of a boat supposed to have been 

 once fortified, and turning northwards and skirting the banks of 

 the Esk, we arrived at Gilnockie Bridge. Old Gilnockie stood on 



