ITINERARIES. 



151 



but the tide served us not to pass over. Here we had 

 with confidence asserted and confirmed to us this legend, 

 that the ebbs are so great, and floods so low on the 

 Lord's day, that a man in the morning may go in thither 

 to divine service, and in the evening return home dry on 

 foot throughout the whole year, though on other days it 

 be impossible to do the like. There may be seen in this 

 island a strong and almost impregnable fort or castle, 

 and an old church. We saw also Farn Island at a good 

 distance. The country abounds with castles, by reason 

 of its vicinity to Scotland. The church in Holy Isle is 

 reputed the most ancient cathedral in England, built by 

 St. Cuthbert, whose body, by the monks of this church, 

 was conveyed to Duresme, when the Danes pillaged and 



the town, those stones which they call St. Cuthbert's beads, which are 

 nothing else but a sort of entrochi. 



" Erom the Holy Island we rode over the sands to Gosewick, and so on 

 to Berwick, seven miles. 



"We rested at Berwick Sunday, July the 23d, and in the forenoon heard 

 one Smithson, minister here. In the afternoon we walked out to Morrington 

 to hear a Scottish sermon, in a very small parish-church. In the Holy 

 Island I found growing Aparine major Tliwli [Aspe7'ugo procumhens, Limi.] 

 Upon the walls of Bervi^ick, by the sea side, Eryfimum latifolium NeapoUta- 

 num [Sisymhriun Jrio, Linn.] About two miles from Berwick, by the side 

 of a rivulet, in a boggy ground, not far from the road leading to Edinburgh, 

 we found a sort of Pseudo-asphoclelus [Tojieldia palustris, Huds. not now 

 to be found there. See Dr. Johnston's El. of Berwick,] which I had never 

 before seen, much less than that common in England, having, as I guess, 

 white flowers in a spike, to which succeed roundish seed vessels. The stalk 

 of the spike is naked, or not having above one leaf, the spike itself short, 

 the root fibrous, as that of the common. 



July the 24th, we left Berwick, and rode first to Scrammerston Mill, 

 about a mile and an haK distant, where we observed the Echium marinum 

 [Lithospermmi maritimwn. Linn., Steenhanimem maritima, Beich.] ; it hath 

 a blue flower, almost of the figure of honeywort, but shorter. The leaves 

 are small, of a glaucous colour, like to woad or hounds-tongue ; for figure 

 not much unlike the sea-beet, but less, &c. Thence we rode to a village 

 called Bamborough, nigh to the Earn Islands, where Sir William Eorster 

 dwells. There is an old castle, standing on a rock, which was once very 

 strong ; also the ruins of an old abbey. 



" The following birds build on the Earn Islands : guillimets [Guillemots, 

 Uria troile,] scouts or razor biUs \_Alca torda,'] counternebs [Pufiins, Frater- 

 cula arctica,'] wliich build in holes, and I guess them to be Anates arcticce 

 clmii, scarfs, i. e. shags [Phalacrocorax graculus] cornub. Cuthbert duck 

 [Eider duck, Somateria molIissima,~] bigger than a wild duck, of a brown 

 coloui- ; the drake is white on the back, the tail and feathers of the wings 



