verdant hills surrounding it, and being itself clothed on every shore with beautiful woodland scenery.

The ruined castle shown in the view occupies a prominent position upon a heart-shaped peninsula. The visitor will find little but bare and massive walls to tell him of the extent of this fortress, once covering sixteen acres in extent, and forming the chief stronghold in the south-west of Scotland. For many years after the castle fell into ruin it is said the king's tenants used it as a quarry for building stones, and Chambers, in his Picture of Scotland, speaks of one honest burgher who then 'warmed his toes beside a pair of fine jambs procured in Bruce's castle.' From the appearance of the ground, it is evident the neck of the peninsula could be put under water for defensive purposes, having both an outer and an inner defence of this kind, besides one or more intermediate fosses that speak of the same use. The present is not believed to be the original castle built by the Lords of Annandale, but a subsequent erection of the thirteenth century. The days of warlike lords and border forays are over for the Castle of Lochmaben, and now it is to be regarded merely as a splendid addition to the picturesque attractions of this very charming district. Boats may be hired for a row or sail over the placid bosom of the loch, and on a fine autumn evening no more delightful pleasure could be got.

Besides its other attractions, Lochmaben presents a peculiar fact in natural history, for in its waters are found—in addition to other fish—the vendace, a species of fish found in no other loch. It is popularly but erroneously called a fresh-water herring, for it belongs to the family of coregonus, one of the salmonidæ. This rare fish takes no lure, and thus can only be netted, and the fishing for it in the Castle Loch is limited to one day in the year, in July, when the vendace club meet, fish, and dine. The Mill Loch, another and lesser of those surrounding the burgh, also contains vendace, which are fished for one day in August. The Castle Loch measures a mile long by three quarters broad, the Mill Loch is half a mile by quarter of a mile, and the other waters are the Kirk-Loch, Hightae Loch, &c.

LOCH DOON.

Although intimately associated with those scenes to which Burns so plaintively puts the question

and although it 'pours a' its floods' under that ancient brig where Tam O' Shanter had such a narrow escape, Loch Doon is far from the immediate land of Burns, lying remote in a wild and solitary mountain region. The loch is, however, within four miles of Dalmellington station, and as there is excellent fishing, coaches frequently carry the disciples of Walton, as well as searchers after the picturesque, to this quiet, outlying place. Loch Doon is eight miles in length, and irregular in form, the lower limb of the Loch, from which the river Doon issues, lying to the right as shown in our view. The hills on the south are in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and the loch, forming, over its whole length, the boundary between that county and Ayrshire, is surrounded with pastoral mountains.

At the head of the loch, at its southern end, lies an island on which the remains of an ancient castle are seen. This building, the main feature of which is an octagonal peel or tower formed of large square stones, is only vaguely traceable in history, and at one time belonged to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce. Rather more than half a century ago, several canoes were found in the loch near this island, each boat formed from the stem of a single oak tree, the trunk being hollowed out, and the ends finished off in form like a fishing-coble. Common repute gives to such boats an antiquity of eight or nine centuries, but no absolute date can be assigned to them. They belong to what has been called by an eminent Scottish archæologist, non-historic man. Whether they are also pre-historic may be matter of dispute.

The river Doon, for a portion of its course immediately after leaving the loch, presents some very remarkable features. The gully through which it flows gives the appearance of high cliffs rent asunder by some fierce cataclysm to give passage to its waters. The walk along this ravine is singularly striking, the rocks seeming at every turn to close in so as to bar further progress, and when the river is full after a wet season the spectacle is not without elements of terror. All around, the region abounds with lochs, Loch Doon being the largest. Excepting as regards the branch line of railway leading to Dalmellington, the entire district lies apart and silent, a region of hills, occasionally, as in Merrick (2704 feet) and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn (2612 feet), rising to the dignity of mountains, and wholly given up to pastoral uses, except where the iron works around Dalmellington suggest that this upward district touches the border of that mineral wealth which exists so abundantly a little further north.

THE GREY MARE'S TAIL.

While this is not the highest waterfall in Scotland—for the inaccessible Falls of Glomak far exceed all others—the Grey Mare's Tail ranks as one of the most striking. We find amongst the hills at the north-west corner of Annandale, the waters of 'dark Loch Skene,' which find no outlet save over this breakneck descent. Far down in the vale below lies the watering-place of Moffat, famous for its sulphureous springs, clear, cool, and medicinal. Coaches leave this town daily during the season to reach the other side of the hills, and ten miles distant from Moffat this splendid natural phenomenon is seen. The coach, in the slow ascent to the higher level, gives the visitor ample time to find, on foot, the best vantage points from which to see the fall.

When the stream is small, the 'tail' falls off to thin threads of spray, dashed into films of prismatic beauty as they rush from rock to rock. But in spate, the effect comes out in all its grandeur,

and the appropriateness of the name bestowed on the waterfall evidences itself. The entire fall is above two hundred feet at one leap, over a dark rugged precipice, closed in on every side with sharp rocks, and suggesting to the mind ideas of much terror and sublimity. Attempts have been made to scale the face of the fall, occasionally with fatal results, and the imagination can create, even if the eyes cannot see, the fluttering of morsels of clothing that are pointed out by the guide as horrible memorials of such foolhardy attempts. In this wild region were enacted some of the terrible scenes of the Covenanters' persecution. Away in those grim solitudes, 'hunted like a partridge upon the mountains,' the dauntless upholder of the right of private judgment would betake himself, associating with others of like determination. On the 'Watch Hill' opposite Birkhill, the persecuted people set sentinels to signal the approach of Claverhouse or his men, while away in a cave, near a wild waterfall called Dobb's Linn, they held their proscribed services, and here on one occasion the