Report of the Meetings for 1892. 15 



and drained with parallel lines of sheep-drains; looking not 

 unlike a detached portion of one of the green Cheviot hills, 

 without their cincture of rough heather. Wolflee Mansion 

 occupies a tree shaded platform, intermediate between the two 

 great pastoral hills behind it. The view from Wolflee was 

 much admired by Euskin, when he visited there. He thought 

 the quiet scenes around required no other adjuncts, either of 

 water or formal plantations. 



Heriot or Harwood Burn was then crossed, and after a short 

 ascent, Wauchope was reached ; a recently constructed goodly 

 mansion of red sandstone of spacious dimensions. Here the 

 rest of the route was planned out, and entered upon forthwith. 

 The old house, situated by the side of the public road, resembles 

 an old fashioned two-and-a-half storeyed farm house, with 

 white sashed broad framed windows, like those in some old 

 Northumbrian dwellings of this kind. It bus two lateral wings 

 of about one storey height. This is the house which Burns 

 visited. Some old Hollies grow behind it; and the steading is 

 still more withdrawn from view ; and below it, beside a steep 

 road to the rivulet, on a green grassy depression, on a bluff of 

 Eed Sandstone, are the remnants of Wauchope Castle. Here 

 we are shown a fine well, at which, one tradition says. Queen 

 Mary's horse drank ; and that she baited at the Castle, on her 

 return from Hermitage — a popular fiction, which it is neither 

 wise to contradict nor correct. Down in a green recess flows the 

 Wauchope Burn, with Sandpipers piping in their zig-zag fli^^ht, 

 scared by the intrusion. The opposite bank is well-wooded, and 

 the white bloomed sprays of the Wild Cherry displayed their 

 festal beauty. This tree also was plentiful about Hobkirk, but 

 the Hawthorn was scarcely yet in blossom. 



The roadsides in going to the hill for the Camp were 

 tree-bordered. The land above is now one great pasture ; it is 

 rather damp, with marshy Moor-Palms (^Carejc) scattered through 

 it, but has been once under culture, like most of the high green 

 ground hereabouts. From the Camp we look up into a slack, 

 with a bit of native Oak scrub scrawled along it, a mere vestige 

 with indented outline, broadest in the middle. The peaked 

 Winchburgh Hill (1622 feet high) lay beyond this great stretch 

 of green pasture, famed for its Cheviot sheep, the view of its 

 base being intercepted by the green Hemlaw Knowes, which 

 rise to 1099 feet. 



