. The land of heather . ty or more miles, and another wall wasbuilt, from the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh to theClyde at Dumbarton. This marked the extreme north-ern limit of the empire. The strip between the twowalls included most of the Scotch Lowlands; but it didnot long remain in undisputed Roman possession, andpresently the southern wall was again the defensiveborder line. When Severus came to Britain, he re-placed the earth rampart with a wall of stone eightfeet thick and twelve feet high. Along its course heestablished eighteen military stations garrisoned bycohorts of Roman soldiers, a
. The land of heather . ty or more miles, and another wall wasbuilt, from the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh to theClyde at Dumbarton. This marked the extreme north-ern limit of the empire. The strip between the twowalls included most of the Scotch Lowlands; but it didnot long remain in undisputed Roman possession, andpresently the southern wall was again the defensiveborder line. When Severus came to Britain, he re-placed the earth rampart with a wall of stone eightfeet thick and twelve feet high. Along its course heestablished eighteen military stations garrisoned bycohorts of Roman soldiers, and at intervals of amile were forts containing one hundred men each,while between each pair of forts were four watch-towers. Toward the close of the fourth century Ro-man dominion was reasserted over the Scotch lowlands,but the territory was shortly lost again, and a littlelater the Romans finally abandoned Britain. Of the huge line of fortifications erected by the oldRoman emperors surprisingly little remains, and even. A Glimpse of Galloway 257 when the remnants are best preserved, as at Gilsland,they are not at all conspicuous. Here had been oneof the old forts, and I had expected to see some mas-sive ruins; but the reality was hardly more than anordinary stone fence, and it was rarely so high that Icould not overlook it. Beyond a narrow area on thishilltop the old-time upheavals of earth and stoneceased altogether, and the fragments to be found any-where from coast to coast are few and , though to the eye the ruins were not at all im-posing, when I recalled their age and associations, tohave seen them seemed a notable experience. Theyfurnished, too, an impressive example of times powerto level and disintegrate, and of the constant efforts ofthe elements to wipe out everything that lifts itselfabove the general level, though man, too, in thisinstance, has had much to do with the I took leave of bonnie Scotland and journeyedsouthward into Engl
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
