Report of Meetings for 1889. By Dr. J. Hardy. 491 



country, as the company did not arrive till 1 o'clock. The farm- 

 house and castle are situated on a rising ground amidst pastoral 

 or cultivated fields, and both are surrounded with trees. Cran- 

 shaws Hill (1245 feet), a high ridge covered with heather, which 

 was still in bright blossom, sweeps round the west side of the 

 cultivable part of the farm. The pasture land to the S.W., with 

 a burn in it, and now well drained, is called the Braid (Broad) 

 Bog ; and above it, on a height, are foundations of a steading, 

 believed to be old Thorneyburn. The Salter's road or trackway 

 passes from this site till it is lost among an assemblage of earthen 

 mounds, resembling fortifications, which some of the people 

 attribute to the Highlanders of 1715, near the Longformacus 

 road, above Eedpath. Howbog and Comfortlee border on Eed- 

 path ; the first was once a separate farm which Mr Bertram's 

 ancestors tenanted, when the} 7 first came to the neighbourhood ; 

 it is now a lonely shepherd's house, attached to Cranshaws 

 farm. On the 8.W. also, but nearer Cranshaws, a long fir 

 plantation runs up a field side ; which has the Chester's Camp 

 at the upper end of it. Speaking of native wood, Mr Bertram 

 said, that still among the heather, Rowan trees (Mountain 

 Ashes), Birches, and Oaks arise ; and that all along, skirting 

 the heights to a place called Hungry Snout, there is still a 

 sprinkling of dwarf Birches among the bogs or heather. At a 

 place now called Cowies-haugh, but in Forrest's Map of 

 Haddingtonshire, 1 799, named Cowtes-haugh, and lying on the 

 Whitadder below St. Agnes ; although now under culture, the 

 late Mr James Darling, Priestlaw, one of the patriarchs of the 

 hills, recollected that the native growth of scrubby wood on it 

 was so dense that Books had their nests in it. The sheep and a 

 flock of goats nibbled it all away.* Dog Law, a hill overlooking 

 this haugh, is 1049 feet high. From the battlements of the 

 castle, there is a fine outlook across the sloping and rising 

 ground on the opposite side of the Whitadder. There is first, 



* The goats belonged, partly to the Bertrams in Cranshaws, and partly 

 to the Darlings in Horseupcleugh. It is told of them that one dry year 

 their meat failed, and they were removed to Cockbnrn Law. Every year 

 after that the goats paid it a visit of their own accord. Owing to their 

 mischievous habits, it was found necessary to slaughter them. The most 

 notorious ill-doer was sentenced to be precipitated from the top of Cran- 

 shaws castle, and was to be allowed to live if he survived, which he did. 

 The goats were kept for the benefit of those who resorted to the hill- 

 country to drink " Goat Whey." 



