Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-12
OLD BORDER TOWNS.
PLACES TOURISTS WOULD BE PROF.
TIED BY VISITING.

They Are Rich in Historical Associations
Quaint Old Battlements-Peculiarit of
the People - The Reception Given
American Machinery Recently.
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE D1sPATcH.1
KELso, SCOTLAND, July 1.-American
travellers fastening between the English
and Scottish capitals miss what have often
felt is the most interesting portion of the
two countries. That is the border country
with its ancient border towns, in and
around which have been fought more
ferocious contests than elsewhere in all
England and Scotland. These old border
towns have been but little modernized. The
railway stations are about all the structures
in them that have large windows or smell of
paint. They remain chiefly as they stood
when the border raids were ended.
They are gray, battle-scarred, ancient.
They were built in fighting times and have
their records in their hard old faces To
wander among them is like being whisked
back four or five centuries and set down
face to face with the grimness aud hardness
of feudal times. Scotland is richest in these
weird old relics. The Scotch crowded close
to the border, built huge places of sally,
and then, being Hveliest ON their legs, char
ried" the English in such brisk and occu-
pying way that they had little time on their
hands, after chasing the raiders home, for
building border towns. On the English
side, in the two great border shires of Cum
berland and Northumberland, there are but
two border cities of note, of ancient origin,
Newcastle and Carlisle, unless the little
early day castle towns of Penrith and Kes-
wick, the latter in the English lake district,
m ay be included.
characteristics of the Towns.
But in the three adjoining Scottish shires
are Berwick and Coldstream, Kelso, Jed
burgh, Melrose, Hawick, Langholm, Eccle-
fechan, AMMAN and Dumfries. 1t would in
deed be carrying Goals to Newcastle to at
tempt discovering much of interest in that
border city beyond matters connected with
manufactures and coal At Keswick one is SO
preoccupied with the noble scenery of Der
went vale, dominated by huge Skiddaw, and
by the memories recalled by the lines Of
Southey and Coleridge, that its ancient
character and traditions fade into insignif-
cance.
Little and quaint old Penrith is place
no tourist ever finds, yet it is certainly one
of the oldest hives of humans in England.
Here are the remains of once huge border
castle built by the Sevilles. That is all the
canny Scots could see when they sailed over
the border but they knew that at its base.
in little hollow, stood the grotesque town,
its streets the narrowest, most winding and
may in England, and that its wise old
burghers had much of value hid in their
tiny strongholds of houses 1t is at Penrith
sacked scores of times in the English and
Scottish wars, and for several brief periods
the residench of that merry murderer Eino
Richard IIL-that you will find one of Eng
and's
Most Curious Rude Stone Monuments.
1t stands in the little churchyard, and is
known as the ''Giant's Grave" There are
two huge stone pillars, one each at the head
and foot They taper from circumference
of II feet at the base to seven at the ton.
Folklore of the region atfrms that they
were erected ages gone by to perpetuate the |
memory of q legendary giant called Owen |
Casarius. They are covered with Runio |
carvings. The British antiquarians long
since gave them up as dead age secret, and |
Sir Walter Scott nearly went mad puzzling |
his poor knobby head over them.
But saw the people of Penrith in a more |
vexed puzzle than this the other day. A |
portable engine and threshing machine of |
American pattern were being hauled down |
hill through its single thoroughfare, which |
sharply winds to the right and left to accom- |
modate the entire place. 1t was too narrow
in places to allow their passage. Presently
the two pieces of machinery were wedred |
fast between the opposite houses An extra |
ordinary commotion followed, as all the
town-folk on either side seemed at once furi- |
GUS to pass to the other, and this sinuous
street was the only means, without making |
. circuit of half the place Everything from