Autumnal Rovings. 211 



countenances. In the morning the stream had presented 

 the hue of London porter ; in the evening it has thickened 

 into the consistency of pea-soup. But in storm or calm Dum- 

 fries cannot be robbed of its great natural advantages — of its 

 delightful environs, which rise like ramparts bristling not 

 with weapons of war, but with a chevaux de frise of coppice 

 and plantation, and bright villas set in verdant grounds — 

 of its Vale of Nith, or of its second line, so to speak, of 

 defence, the higher mountains that stand respectfully back, 

 as if reluctant to lord it too obtrusively over the vale. 



Adown this vale Burns said he wandered to mark the 

 sweet flowers of the spring, and to muse and sing of 

 Phillis. If one might speak from passing experience, the 

 more modern youth of Dumfries have also discovered the 

 aptitude of the Valley of the Nith for musing and talking 

 with Phillis. The grand avenue of trees and level stretch of 

 sward are scarcely worth the name of park, but still it is not 

 the less agreeable as a promenade because of the misnomer, 

 and there are few towns in the United Kingdom that can 

 give its inhabitants such a stroll as that waterside walk past 

 the docks. Dumfries is venerable, and in the surrounding 

 neighbourhood supplies abbeys on quite a wholesale prin- 

 ciple. 



But before you can bestow undivided time and thought 

 upon historical or archaeological matters, Robert Burns 

 must be remembered. Not, however, that you are likely to 

 forget the poet in Dumfries, which is for ever sacred to his 

 memory. There is a street named after him, and there, 

 glistening in the shower, hangs a very fair portrait of him on 

 a signboard. You are shown the house in which he died, 

 the conspicuous tomb which contains his dust, the rooms in 

 which he lived, the tavern where he was served by Anna of 

 the Golden Locks, the chair in which he sat, the window* 



