Vol 13 - Dumfriesshire & Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian ...

14 Antiquities of Eskdalemuir.
as our grenial and candid critic (by implication) himself allows,
there is to be found (here and there) a sprinkling of liuman beings
who, I am happy to say, make up in intelligence what they lack in
numbers. The fact is that that wild stretch of moorland which
lies between the two Kirks of Hutton and Eskdalemuir, and which
is unredeemed by a single feature of interest to break its bleak
monotony, represents but a fraction, and that the least attractive
fraction, of the whole extent of the parish, which covers an area
of 66 square miles, and is facile princeps the largest parish in
Dumfriesshire. But if this five miles of unmitigated moorland be
in itself the ne plus ultra of dreariness and desolation, it acts as a
magnificent foil and introduction to the real beauty of the Dale of
Esk itself—a Dale that rivals in sweetness and pastoral attractiveness
any of the other great Dales of the Borderland (as Tweed-
dale, Teviotdale, Liddesdale, Annaudale, Clydesdale). To all
lovers of the beautiful, to all who would steep their senses in what
Veitch finely calls " the pastoral melancholy of the Lowlands,"
Eskdalemuir holds out inducements irresistible as they are
innumerable. The student of ancient lore may here have his
appetite for the mythical and the marvellous stimulated and
strengthened by the tales and traditions that hover round and lend
an indescribable charm to almost every square foot of land he
treads or looks upon ; while the Archseologist or Antiquarian will
find in this sequestered vale "far from the madding crowd" a
veritable happy hunting ground full of objects of interest and
importance that will call forth all his powers of observation, and
tax all his ingenuity to explain. Along that far-stretching line of
river-flow, that extends from the water-shed of the parish down
to its southern extremity, at the famous King pool, there stand
out on either bank of the river, camps, forts, rings, and other
remains, constituting the very earliest inhabited dwelling places on
the Borders, dating back to the time of the Cymri, who were here
during the Roman occupation, if indeed they were not here before
it. These forts, mounds, and rings have been popularly designated
Roman, though I am persuaded that in the vast majority of
instances they have little or no claim to the title ; for a careful
examination of the root forms that enter into the names of many
of the places and objects of the district would appear to point to a
Cymric rather than a Roman derivation. As Professor Veitch has
remarked in his references to the Border valleys generally, and