10 THE EASTERN BORDERS, 



and serpentine, its banks flat and unadorned, its margin often 

 miry and sedgy, its water drumly, its bottom treacherous, and 

 its current still but strong, with streams at distant intervals. It 

 borrows from nature, and as much from art, some picturesqueness 

 and beauty at Etal, — a larger share at Heaton-mill ; and admit- 

 tedly it lends the prime attraction to the demesnes of Tillmouth 

 and of Twizell. Its union with the Tweed is amidst charming 

 scenery, for even when the former chides the sluggish pace of 

 her tributary, the little ruffling scarcely dims the beauty that 

 ever waits upon her course. A well-known rhyme characterizes 

 the two rivers correctly : 



" Tweed said to Till, 

 ' What gars ye rin sae still ? ' 

 Till said to Tweed, 



' Though ye rin wi' speed. 



And 1 rin slaw, 

 Yet where ye drown ae man, 

 I drown twa ! '" 



The tributaries of the Till flow all from the Cheviots. The 

 chief are Hoddam-burn, Lill-burn, Wooler-water with its tribu- 

 tary the Coldgate-burn, the College and the Glen, and the water 

 of Bowmont. These have all one character : — they are shallow, 

 sparkling burns which haste murmuring over a stony bottom, 

 now and then falling over linns and rapids, and occasionally 

 lingering in some embayment, or at the foot of a precipice, to 

 collect their waters in a deeper pool. They are all readily flooded 

 by rains, and will then sometimes do great mischief to the haughs 

 and meadow-pastures, tearing up and carrying away the soil they 

 have overflown, or burying whole acres under a bed of unpro- 

 ductive sand and gravel*. The naturalist cannot so well examine 

 the Cheviots as by tracing up these burns to their sources. They 

 lead him at first through level grounds into rich valleys that 

 naiTOw as he travels upwards ; and they conduct him to secluded 

 vales and green hills, and into deans filled yet with some re- 

 mains of the once great forest of Cheviot. The College will 

 guide him to the summit of the hill that gives name to the 

 range, and through a deep and rugged ravine, named the 

 Brizzle, which is the botanist's appropriate highway. 



Our principal lochs lie in the west of this half of the district. 

 Learmouth bog, one of our most interesting localities, almost 

 touches the base of the lower Cheviots ; and Pawston-lough hes 

 amongst them. Not far distant, but in Roxburghshire, we have 

 Yetholm, Hoselaw, and Linton loughs, — each with its peculiar 

 attractions. Yetholm or Primside lough is a sheet of water 



* Stat. Ace. Roxburghshire, p. 160. These rain-born torrents are called 



Spates. 



