REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1904 127 



region of the Dark Continent. During an absence of nineteen 

 months, in which he suffered many hardships, he obtained 

 such an abundance of valuable and stirring information that, 

 on his return to Foulshiels in the summer of 1799, he was 

 able to publish an account of his adventures, entitled "Travels 

 in the Interior of Africa," which gained for him a widespread 

 and well-merited notoriety. Having entered into matrimonial 

 relations, he settled for a time in Peebles as a medical 

 practitioner, but finding the life among his native hills too 

 tame and uneventful, he gladly accepted a commission from 

 the Government to renew his explorations on the Niger. 

 Arriving at Pisania, on the Gambia, he recruited a company 

 of forty-five, most of whom were soldiers, and pushed forward 

 once more into the heart of the country, only to be stripped 

 through fever and mischance of most of his companions, and 

 suffer shipwreck on the river, in which he and his faithful 

 followers eventually were drowned. In the front wall of 

 the old house a tablet was erected by the late Dr Henry 

 Anderson of Selkirk, commemorating the exploits of this 

 intrepid traveller, and his premature death in 1805. 



Coaching in comfort amid the beautiful trees and parka 



that encircle the country seats of present day 

 Newark proprietors, it is easy for one to efface from 



Castle. memory the forays and depredations of bold 



outlaws and Border chieftains of bygone genera- 

 tions; but the sight of "Newark's towers renowned in Border 

 story" brings back to mind the performance of doughty deeds, 

 which, if not in truth enacted there, were sung by yon "wan- 

 dering Harper, scorn'd and poor, who begged his bread from 

 door to door," and at the instance of that high dame that 

 "gave him heart and gave him time," poured forth "to lord 

 and lady gay the unpremeditated lay." Newark, as its name 

 suggests, replaced an ancient pile called Auldwark, erected 

 in the near vicinity, and consists at the present time of a 

 large square roofless tower, with outer walls and turrets, in 

 a fairly good state of preservation. Dating from the year 

 1466, it was bequeathed to Margaret of Denmark, Queen of 

 James III., as part of her Forest dowry, and in due course 

 to Margaret of England, Queen of James IV., at length falling 

 into the possession of the Scotts of Buccleuch, in whose 



