Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-24
IN ANNANDALE.
Ruins of che Grandest Fortress on the
Scottish Border-HOme of the
Bruces.
Pastoral Annandale-How the Pilgrim, to
Carlyle's Home and Tomb Is Looked
Upon with Suspicion.
[copyrighted, 1901

Nithsdale on the west is the sweet and
pastoral Annandale, though not among
the most noted yet one of the most lovely
valleys of the Scottish border. To the
leisurely and sentimental pilgrim larry
ing among its pleasing scenes, it appeals
with goodly fascination. 1t is but q ii ny
vale, thirty miles long, the river Amman ,
from which II takes Its name, having
Its source IN the Hartfell mountains,
and winding with gentle flow through
and between characteristic Scottish viii
lagos its banks dotted with humble crofts +,
larger farmsteads, and all the lang sype
features OF countryside Scottish homes.
Though the little valley is accorded NO spe-
cial fame among the Scottish people thsm-
selves, and is scarcely ever visited by
tourists. TO me it seems that in q few
particulars it possesses extraordinary in
terest. Within the distance of one day g
tramp across five parishes through which
winds the gentle Amman, can be seen one
OF the most ancient, and certainly one OF
the most historic castle ruins OF Scot
land, the first home in Scotland of Rob-
ert the Bruce, at Lochmabeu; the birth
place, at Amman, of the greatest and
most unfortunate of all Scottish preach
ers, Edward Irving; the wonderful phe-
nomena the tides of Solway Firth, which
are perhaps better observed from the
great Amman viaduct connecting England
with Scotland than at any other spot
along the Solway shores; and the birth
place and burial-place of the one phil
osepher, essayist and critic who has I'M
doubtedly left deeper impression upon
the intellectual minds in Great Britain
and America than any other individual
who ever adorned and perplexed this
country-crabbed, crafty, mighty and
glorious old
THOMAS CARLYLE.
At about the center of AnnaudaIe in
the parish of Lochmaben, are eight
curious little lakes shallow and with
sedgy shores. In these are found the
veudace fishes from five to six inches in
length, nowhere else discovered in
Great Britain, of brilliant silvery ap-
pearance, and in anatomy and flavor
much resembling those famous American
oiscoes which, in June, attract such
hosts of anglers to the shores of Lake
Geneva, in Wisconsin. They are the
most delicate fish known to the British
gourmand. Their heads are ex-
traordinarily marked, in puce-
colored transparent substance, with
the perfectly defined figure of
heart, through which, when freshly
caught, the brain may be seen.
Along the haughs and moss-banks of the
lochs the deadly adder turks; and the
peasantry will tell you that these dread
full reptiles are kept down by their i'm
plaza BILE foes, the herons, which are GER
tainly continually seen lodging in and
out among, and lowering over, the sur
rounding reeds and MOSES. About a
mile from the ancient burgh town of
Lochmaben. on tongue-shaped penin-
sula which extends into the lake called
the Castlesloch, are found the ruins of
the grandest fortress the border ever
knew. Whether or not it was the original
residence of the Bruces, granted by
David l., in 1924, or an enlarged sue
cessor built in the Thirteenth century, it
covered sixteen acres of ground, and Is
known to have been absolutely impregna-
BILE before the invention of gunpowder.
1t was a stupendous and magnificent pile,
and the care and perfection with
which it was built are attested in
the immense walls still traceable,
and in the fact that though its
masonry has been exposed to the
eleu6UL3 VI OUO years. ouo Will tO-udJ DC
often break the stone itself as separate
by strokes of sledge hammer the stone
and mortar with which the walls were
constructed. 1t seems unfortunate that
so noble q ruin could not have been given
better care and preservation. One half
of the structures of Lochmaben burg
have built from the material in the ma
jestic stone pile. Cow houses and byre
walls for half dozen miles in every d.
rection disclose the source from which
their material was ravaged by protrud-
ing molding, splendid ashlar work or
gruning gargoyles; it is SAID that q citi-
zen OF Lochmuben burgh warns his shins
at the identical pair of jam bs which once
rested on the paternal hearth of Bruce;
and the old key to the outer gate of the
majestic pile, in which had been nur-
tured the proudest line of the Scottish
patriot kings, on being discovered half
century since by the leaden- headed binds
of the district, was regarded as such an
antiquarian prize, as 1t weighed several
pounds, that IL was at once turned over
to the Lochmaben blacksmith for CON-
version into a pair of
UTILITARIAN TURF SPADES!
The prim and ancient town of Amman,
at the side of the Solway where the
AMMAN waters flows into that estuary, is
q burgh of quaint, old granite homes,
inhabited by quaint, old granite Scotch
folk, rich, contented, indolent. Great,
square houses, great square doors great,
square windows with great, square faces
in them, tell the story of olden thrift,
and the older border prowess, with
now and then a quiet era of as profitable
smuggling, whose headquarters werein
the sheltering port. Somehow the
broad, cool, shaded, silent streets and
deserted wharf sides recall Salem town,
on our New England coast, and its
flavor of romance when the old shippers
sailed home with their wondrous riches
and curiosities, not always peacefully
got in the Indies. East and West; and
the Annauites will match Salem IS Gallows
Hill with its old castle site and its dark
deeds of valor and blood; in place OF, Sa-
lem's custom house and the desk where
the gentle Hawthorne toiled, they will
bring you 10 the old academy, now n
stately residence, where Carlyle once was
schooled, and was afterwards its mas
ter in mathematics; and for Salem's
memories of Mather they will recall for
you the wonderful career of that m
spired and holy man, Edward Irving,
whom, for living too CLOSELY to his divine