208 By Stream and Sea. 



It is Lowland only by courtesy. For miles the moun- 

 tains heave northward in a billowy formation that resembles 

 the most striking Dartmoor scenery, only the billows are 

 more gigantic, and there is an absence of the granitic 

 masses which speckle the desolate Devonshire moorland. 

 At one station the line crosses a deep valley over a tall, 

 handsome viaduct, and, far beneath, the passenger from his 

 window sees the mountain stream madly chasing itself 

 from rock to rock, turning, twisting, bubbling, contracting, 

 spreading, and sparkling along a sandy margin, unrelieved 

 by bush or shrub, and in its every feature suggestive of still 

 bleaker and wilder country far up in its cradle land. The 

 journey is not long enough to be monotonous, but of 

 sufficient duration to familiarize you with the bold grandeur 

 of this description of landscape. The well-rounded moun- 

 tains are now developing the mellow hues of autumn, save 

 where the heather assumes a startlingly deep purple by 

 contrast with the golden brown or the mossy herbage. The 

 cattle for which this famous Galloway land is noted are 

 upon all the hills, and black-faced mountain sheep, nimble 

 as goats, leap from knoll to knoll, in their haste to escape 

 upwards from the approaching locomotive. 



Railway travelling, after all, is not absolute misery, 

 although it is somewhat the fashion to say so. In the latter 

 half of our journey a thunderstorm broke ; forked lightning 

 cleft the sky, and seemed to pierce the summits of the hills 

 like daggers aimed with a deadly hand; a hailstorm fol- 

 lowed, and then, with marvellous rapidity, the atmosphere 

 cleared, the sun recoloured the mountains, and the sweet 

 bow of promise was placed in the clouds. All this ap- 

 peared as a succession of set scenes, of which the carriage- 

 window was the framework. In similar fashion the moun- 

 tains seemed to parade before us like regiments on a review 



