542 
cottage ; and at feveral other huts along 
the road. The peopleare extremely civil ; 
and fo hofpitable, that if one calls for 4 
bottle of ale, they will often accompany 
it with bread and cheefe. AsI purfue my 
journey, the vale contraéts, and at length 
quite fhuts up, fo as juft to leave a paflage 
for the river. Theroad now gently climbs 
the mountain, and then runs along its fide 
almoft half way up. Here the feene is 
quite new, and furprifingly curious 5 very 
different from any thing I have feen hitherto 
in any part of England or Wales. Thefe 
hills are covered on every fide with the 
mot beautiful verdure; the grafs is folt 
and luxuriant ; not a ftone, not a tree, 
not a fhrub nor even a heath, or furze-bufh, 
breaksthe uniformityof the picture. Nothing 
but the filvery tints of the bleating flocks, 
feeding on the {welling breafts of thefe 
mountains, vary the chearful green which 
overfpreads them from head to foot. 
Scarce a fern is to be feen; and even thofe 
furrows, which time and heavy rains had 
worn in their fides, are now covered with 
herbage, fo thatit is difficultito find a fpeck. 
The river tumbles along its channel 
many hundreds of yards below, and to 
which the defcent from the road is extreme- 
ly rapid, but without the horror of a 
rocky precipice. I had all along viewed 
with pleafure the verdure of the hills: but 
here no contraft appears; I no longer fee 
the cultivated vale beneath ; the ftraggling 
wood creeping up the fide of the hill ;_ 
nor the fhepherd’s cot on the border of the 
fiream. ‘The road prefently defcends a- 
gain to the bottom, winds about the 
corner of a mountain, and a fine avenue 
of about a mile in length opens at once in 
a direct line, and is terminated by the inn, 
called Mofpawl, a large farm-houle, 
ftuated twelve miles and a half from 
Hawick: Here ahigh and long ridge of 
hills bounds each fide, leaving a vale 
40 yards wide; and the road goes along 
the middle with a brook on each hand. 
Treach the inn, which, although placed 
“a this wild diftri€t, is faid to afford de- 
cent accommodations ; but the evening 
approaching, I had not time to call there. 
Here Tarrive at the fource of the river, 
which I have been clofely purfuing from 
Langholm, and am falling into another 
vale wafhed by the Tiviot, a large branch 
of the Tweed, running contrary to the 
direStion of that which I have juft left. The 
mountains now grow tamer, more lumpifh, 
and partly covered with patches of fhort 
heath. Befides the pleafing, novel appear- 
ence of the country, I have been amufed 
all along with feeing the thepherds coliect- 
Zz 
Pofition of the city Sera. | 
‘ 
[July I, 
ing their flocks, and driving them to the 
bafe of the mountain ; while three or four 
pretty milk-maids, with pails in their 
hands, are iffuing from their cots, and 
climbing the hills to meet the ewes, which 
in a convenient fituation are penned up 
with hurdles for the purpofe of being milk- 
ed. Zhe men are wrapped in their plaids, 
and women go without fhoes and ftockings, 
and often without ahat. “heir petticoats 
are alfo frequently kilted up as high as 
the knee; and, if the morning or evening 
is wet, a plaid likewife covers their fhould- 
ers and head. The ewes go readily into 
the fold, and are milked with aftonifhing 
rapidity. The inftin&t of the fhepherd’s 
dog incolleéting and driving the flocks, is 
not lefs furprizing than that of the pointer 
in finding game, &c. I frequently paffed 
the end of another vale which opened into 
this, and fence forth a ftream of water. 
There vallies ate generally narrow, but 
cultivated alone the bottom. 
(To be continued.) 
’ = 
For the Minthly Magazine. 
On the TRUE POSITION of the CITY SERA 
of PTOLEMY, by M, JULIUS KLAP- 
ROTH, Of BERLIN. ' 
HIS city (2upa penrpomeric, Ptol. lib.vi. 
cap. 16) is one of the moft impor- 
tant points of all northern Afia, as far as’ 
it was know to the ancients. Before the 
time of D’Anville, it was by fome held to 
be the Siz-din-fu of Marco Polo; by 
others, Chan-balig or Peking :* by others 
again, Panyu. D’Anville was the firft, 
who in his map Monde connu des anciens 
(Rollin, Hift. Anc. t.i. praf. p. 7) adop- 
ted KAN-TSCHEU, in the Chinefe province 
Schen-fi, as the Sera of Ptolemy, and fo re- 
duced the anciently known world within 
narrower limits. This hypothefis he con- 
firi, ed by his Orbis veteribus notus, in the 
year 1763; and all pofterior geographers 
followed him. But D’Anville had been 
mifled by Mercator’s maps to Ptolemy, in 
which the courfe’ of the two rivers of Se- 
rica, the Oechardes and Bautes, is fo de- 
lineated as nowife to correfpond with the 
Greek text. According to the mapsdrawn 
by M. Klaproth in conformity to the cor- 
rected text of Ptolemy, the fouthern branch, 
Bautes, appears to him to have been the 
Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and the nor- 
thern branch the Olan-muren, which takes 
its rife to the north of the K4a-kho- zor, on 
the borders of Thibet, and in the land of the 
Si_ fan; and flows into the Hoang ho,ing1°1 5! 
N. Lat. But now itis more difficult to de- 
~® Ulug Beg; ed, Gxygv. Lond, 1652, p. 63. 
- termine 

