arcity. And by the time of James VI. the hunting possibilities of the
Border were at an end.

More than anything else, the laying down of the great railway lines and
the immense road improvements of last century have opened up practically
every corner of the Border Country. There are now no places so utterly
inaccessible as Liddesdale was during Scott's visits. It is possible to
reach the most out-of-the-way parts with comparative comfort. And with
the dawn of the motor age, still greater hopes and possibilities appear
in store.

PLATE 2

CRAG LOCH AND THE
ROMAN WALL

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 24, 44, 45, 71, 73_)

[Illustration]

THE MAKING OF THE BORDER

It is from the Roman historian Tacitus that the light of history falls
for the first time on the Border Country. It is a mere glimpse, however.
But it is enough to show us the calibre of the men who held its forests
and fastnesses at that remote period. They were the Brigantes, a branch
probably of the Celts, who were the first to reach Britain, coming from
the common home-land of the Ayrian race somewhere in Central Asia. Their
kingdom, Brigantia, embraced all the country between the Mersey and
Humber and the Links of Forth. They are spoken of as a strong,
courageous and warlike people, able for many years to keep the Roman
cohorts at bay and to check the northward progress of the invaders. The
Roman Conquest of Britain, as is well known, was begun by Julius Caesar
as far back as B.C. 55. It was not, however, till the time of Julius
Agricola (A.D. 78-84) that the Romans obtained a firm footing on the
island. Agricola's generalship was more than a match for the sturdy
Brigantes. He carried the Roman eagles to the Forth and Clyde, fixing
his main line of defence and his northmost frontier on the isthmus
between these two firths. But about A.D. 120, when the Emperor Hadrian
visited Britain, his chief work was the delimitation of the Roman
territory by the great stone wall still bearing his name, stretching
from the Tyne to the Solway, a distance of 73-1/2 miles. Twenty years
later, however, Lollius Urbicus, the Emperor's lieutenant in Britain,
appears to have revived and restored Agricola's boundary, so that what
we now know as the Border Country, for more than three hundred years
(A.D. 78-410), formed a part of the mightiest empire of the ancient
world. Hadrian's rampart, the great camps at Cappuc