OMAN’S

AFTER passing the town of Dalkeith, and all along the skirts of the same lovely tract of scenery on the Esk, which I have already described to you, the road to Abbotsford leads for several miles across a bare and sterile district, where the progress of cultivation has not yet been able to change much of the general aspect of the country. There are, however, here and there some beautiful little valleys cutting the desert—in one of which, by the side of a small mountain stream, whose banks are clothed everywhere with a most picturesque abundance of blooming furze, the old Castle of Borthwick is seen projecting its venerable Keep, unbroken apparently, and almost undecayed, over the few oaks which still seem to linger like so many frail faithful vassals around the relics of its grandeur. When I passed by this fine ruin, the air was calm and the sky unclouded, and the shadow of the square massy pile lay in all its clear breadth upon the blue stream below; but Turner has caught or created perhaps still more poetical accompaniments, and you may see it to at least as much advantage as I did, in his magnificent delineation.

Shortly after this the view becomes more contracted, and the road winds for some miles between the hills—while, upon the right, you have close by your side a modest little rivulet, increasing, however, every moment in breadth and boldness. This is the infant Gala Water—so celebrated in the pastoral poetry of Scotland—flowing on to mingle its tributary stream with the more celebrated Tweed. As you approach, with it, the great valley of that delightful river, the hills become more and more beautiful in their outlines, and where they dip into the narrow plain, their lower slopes are diversified with fine groupes of natural wood—hazel—ash—and birch, with here and there some drooping, mouldering oaks and pines, the scanty relics of that once mighty Forest, from which the whole district still takes its name.