the monastic system in Northumbria did more than
anything else to civilise and colonise the entire realm, Scotland
included. "Its monasteries," as Green says, "were the seat of whatever
intellectual life the country possessed, and above all, it had been the
first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes
of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a
century to accustom them to a national life out of which England as we
have it now was to spring."

The physical conditions, generally speaking, are similar on both sides
of the Border. Wide arable expanses, well-wooded and fertile, cover the
chief valleys and much of the Northumbrian coast-line. But in the main,
the landscape is purely pastoral for miles, showing few signs of human
life, and the nearest habitation often at a considerable distance. The
Northumbrian uplands are confined chiefly to the Cheviots, the Pyrenees
on a small scale; two-thirds of their whole three hundred square miles
are in the county, constituting perhaps the loveliest cluster of
pastoral hills in the island. Of this group, Cheviot--to be more
distinctive, _the_ Cheviot--(2676 feet) sits in the centre almost,
dignified and massive, the "recumbent guardian of the great lone
moorland." Others, taking them according to height, are Cairn Hill
(2545), Hedgehope (2348), Comb Fell (2132), Cushat Law (2020), Bloody
Bush Edge (2001), Windy Gyle (1963), Dunmore (1860), Carter Fell (1600),
and Yeavering Bell (1182)--a graceful cone overlooking the pretty hamlet
of Kirknewton. A climb to the broad back of the Cheviot, or the rounded
top of Yeavering, should be made by every tourist who rambles along the
Border. Both are reachable from the Scottish and English sides, as by
Bowmont and Colledge Waters, or by that loveliest of all the upland
dales, Langleeford. Despite the somewhat quagmire character of its flat
summit, the view from the Cheviot, as one might expect, is a truly
inspiring one, comprising the whole coast-line between Berwick and
Tynemouth, and the vast inland expanse from Midlothian to the
Solway--the Scottish Border _in toto_. The Cheviots are hills rather
than the "mountains blue" of poetic licence. Yet all are imposing to a
degree, and exhibit an excellent contour against the sky-line. They have
none of the wildness and savagery of the Highland ranges, and even the
steepest are grass-grown from skirt to summit, being easy of ascent, and
commanding the