wooded banks of no great height, and is crossed by the noble bridge of Coldstream, is extremely beautiful. The village of Coldstream itself is very pretty with its nice modern cottages and gardens; but it is likewise interesting from some of its old buildings. Coldstream was remarkable for its convent of Cistercian nuns, of which Mr. Chambers gives us the following interesting account:— Previous to the Reformation Coldstream could boast of a rich priory of Cistercian nuns; but of the buildings not one fragment now remains. The nunnery stood upon a spot a little eastwards from the market-place, where there are still some peculiarly luxuriant gardens, besides a small burying-ground, now little used. In a slip of waste ground, between the garden and the river, many bones and a stone coffin were dug up some years ago; the former supposed to be the most distinguished of the warriors that fought at Flodden; for there is a tradition that the abbess sent vehicles to that fatal field and brought away many of the better orders of the slain, whom she interred here. The field, or rather hill, of Flodden, is not more than six miles from Coldstream, and the tall stone that marks the place where the king fell, only about half that distance, the battle having terminated about three miles from the spot where it commenced. General Monk made this his quarters till he found a favourable opportunity for entering England to effect the Restoration; and it was here that he raised that regiment that has ever afterwards had the name of the Coldstream Guards. The River Till is an important tributary to the Tweed from its right bank. The Till runs so extremely slow that it forms a curious contrast with the Tweed, whose course here is very rapid, giving rise to the following quaint verses "Tweed said to Till, What gars ye rin sae still? Till said to Tweed, Though ye rin wi' speed, And I rin slow, Yet where ye drown ac man We must now proceed to make our last inroad into England-an inroad, however, very different indeed from those which used to be made by our ancestors, when they rode at the head of their men-at-arms, for the purpose of harrying the country and driving a spoil. We go now upon a peaceful visitation of Norham Castle, certainly the most interesting of all objects of a similar description on the whole course of the Tweed. The ancient name of the castle appears to have been Ubbanford. It stands on a steep bank, partially wooded and overhanging the river. It seems to have occupied a very large piece of ground as the ruins are very extensive, consisting of a strong square keep, considerably shattered, with a number of banks and fragments of buildings enclosed within an outer wall of a great circuit; the whole forming the most picturesque subject for the artist. It was here that Edward I. resided when engaged in acting as umpire in the dispute concerning the Scottish crown. From its position exactly upon the very line of the border, no war ever took place between the two countries without subjecting it to frequent sieges, during which it was repeatedly taken and retaken. The Greys of Chillingham Castle were often successively captains of the garrison; yet as the castle was situated in the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, the property was in the see of Durham till the Reformation. After that period it passed through various hands. The parish of Ladykirk, which now comes under our notice, upon the left bank of the Tweed, was created at the Reformation by the junction of Upsetlington and Horndean. James IV. had built a church which he dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whence it received its name. As we proceed downwards, the scenery on the Tweed may be said to be majestic, from the fine wooded banks which sweep downwards to its northern shores. The surface of the water is continually animated by the salmon coble shooting athwart the stream. A very handsome suspension bridge, executed by Captain Samuel Brown of the Royal Navy here connects England with Scotland, and at some distance below, the Tweed receives the Whitadder as its tributary from the left bank. When we begin to find ourselves within the liberties of Berwick, we discover that we are in a species of no man's land. We are neither in England nor in Scotland, but in "our good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed." We have never passed through it without being filled with veneration for the many marks that yet remain to show what a desperate struggle it must have had for its existence for so many centuries, proving a determined bravery in the inhabitants almost unexampled in the history of man. It always brings to our mind some very ancient silver flagon, made in an era when workmen were inexpert and when the taste of their forms was more intended for use than for ornament, but of materials so solid and valuable as to have made it survive all the blows and injuries, the marks of which are still to be seen upon it; and which is thus infinitely more respected than some modern mazer of the most exquisite workmanship. Escaping from Berwick-bridge the Tweed, already mingled with the tide, finds its way down to its estuary, the sand and muddy shores of which have no beauty in them. And now, oh silver Tweed! we bid thee a kind and last adieu, having seen thee rendered up to that all-absorbing ocean, with which all rivers are doomed to be commingled, and their existence terminated, as is that of frail man, with the same hope of being thence restored by those wellsprings of life that are formed above the clouds. IT NIAGARA JOHN TYNDALL T is one of the disadvantages of reading books about natural scenery that they fill the mind with pictures, often exaggerated, often distorted, often blurred, and, even when well drawn, injurious to the freshness of first impressions. Such has been the fate of most of us with regard to the Falls of Niagara. There was little accuracy in the estimates of the first observers of the cataract. Startled by an exhibition of power so novel and so grand, emotion leaped beyond the control of the judgment, and gave currency to notions which have often led to disappointment. In A record of a voyage, in 1535, by a French mariner named Jacques Cartier, contains, it is said, the first printed allusion to Niagara. In 1603 the first map of the district was constructed by a Frenchman named Champlain. 1648 the Jesuit Rageneau, in a letter to his superior at Paris, mentions Niagara as "a cataract of frightful height." In the winter of 1678 and 1679 the cataract was visited by Father Hennepin, and described in a book dedicated "to the King of Great Britain." He gives a drawing of the waterfall, which shows that serious changes have taken place since his time. He describes it as "a great and prodigious cadence of water, to which the universe does not offer a parallel." The height of the fall, according to Hennepin, was more than 600 feet. "The waters,” he says, "which fall from this great precipice do foam and |