which the river surges and eddies. The reef spreads completely across the river, a distance of about a quarter of a mile, so that in some states of the tide, it is possible to pass on foot from Entre Rios to the Banda Oriental, at all times a difficult, nay dangerous, undertaking. An island formed of massive boulders occupies the centre, on which a few dwarfed trees struggle for an aquatic existence. Here are found splendid agates, blocks of rock crystal, amethysts and other precious stones; and there lie naked on the blistering rocks, those rusty and silent mementos of Garibaldi's unsuccessful expedition in 1840 when, to cross the rapids, he was obliged to throw overboard ten eighteen-pounder iron guns. By contemplating the scene, however, it grows in magnitude and sublimity. THE THE TWEED SIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER HE great valley which affords a course for the Tweed, when taken in conjunction with those minor branch valleys which give passage to its various tributaries, may be called the great Scoto-Arcadian district of pastoral poetry and song. Who could enumerate the many offerings which have been made to the rural muses in this happy country for where there are poetry and song, happiness must be presupposed, otherwise neither the one nor the other could have birth. ? During those barbarous times, when border raids were in continual activity, and when no one on either side of the marches, or debatable land, could lay down his head to sleep at night, without the chance of having to stand at his defense, or perhaps to mount and ride ere morning, the valleys of the Tweed and its tributaries must have witnessed many strange and stirring events and cruel slaughters. To defend themselves from these predatory incursions the Scottish monarchs erected strong castles along the lower part of the course of the Tweed, and the chain of these places of strength was carried upwards, quite to the source of the streams by the various land owners. These last were either Towers or Peels-these different names being given, rather to distinguish the structures as to their magnitude and importance, than from any great difference of plan-the Tower possessing greater accommodations and being much the larger and more impregnable in strength of the two. These strongholds, being intended for the general advantage and preservation of all the inhabitants of the valley, were built alternately on both sides of the river, and in a continued series, so as to have a view one of another; so that a fire kindled on the top of any one of them, was immediately responded to, in the same way, by all the others in succession; the smoke giving the signal by day and the flame by night-thus spreading the alarm through a whole country of seventy miles in extent, in the provincial phrase, from "Berwick to the Bield,"-and to a breadth of not less than fifty miles carrying alarm into the uppermost parts of every tributary glen. Availing ourselves of the quaint language of Dr. Pennecuick, we now beg to inform our readers that "The famous Tweed hath its first spring or fountain nearly a mile to the east of the place where the shire of Peebles marches and borders with the stewartry of Annandale-that is Tweed's Cross, so called from a cross which stood and was erected there in the time of Popery, as was ordinary, in all the eminent places of public roads in the kingdom before our Reformation. Both Annan and Clyde have their first rise from the same height, about half a mile from one another, where Clyde runneth west, Annan to the south, and Tweed to the east." There is some little exaggeration, however, in the old Doctor here for there is, in reality, no branch of Clyde within two miles of Tweed's Cross, or Errickstane Brae. Tweed's Well is not very far from the great road; and the site of Tweed's Cross is 1,632 feet above the level of the sea. "Tweed runneth for the most part with a soft, yet trotting stream, towards the north-east, the whole length of the country, in several meanders, passing first through the Paroch of Tweeds-moor, the place of its birth, then |