Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 2

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the parish, in the feeding of pigs, to aid supply for
the smart demand of England for Dumfries-shire
pork. A large proportion of the inhabitants farm
small crofts, and rear their families as a sort of ped-
dling farmers. Annual fairs — two of them more gala-
days for children and rustic idlers than occasions of
any real business, and the other two hiring-fairs for
farm-servants — are held four times a-year. A weekly
market of some importance is held during winter for
pork. A stage-coach maintains communication in
transit between Dumfries and Langholm. The town
has three inns and a subscription library. The
authorities are a provost, three bailies, a dean-of-
guild, and ten councillors, including a treasurer.
The provost acts ex-ofricio as justice-of-peace for
the county; but his jurisdiction, jointly with that
of the other magistrates in the burgh, is extremely
trifling. There are some corporate bodies with ex-
clusive privileges ; but the entrance-moneys are so
trirling that they can hardly form an obstacle to any
settler. The burgh is irretrievably bankrupt. Its
only property and revenues amount to £113 15s. 6d.
a-year, with the town-house and half an acre of land ;
and its debt is £3,605 17s. 3d. The whole property,
so far as attachable, was sequestrated some years ago
by the Court-of-session, and is under the management
of a judicial factor, who pays the small wonted allow-
ance to town-clerks, gaoler, and officers. Gross neg-
ligence, if not wilful mismanagement, preceded the
declaration of insolvency; and, in particular, a sale
of a farm was effected for £1,350, to the provost of
the day's father-in-law, and was not minuted in any
of the books of the town-council. But though, in
all senses of civil reference, fallen and woe-begone,
the burgh looms largely and magnificently to the
view when seen through the haze of antiquity.
Under the warm wing and fattening fosterage of the
Bruces, it must have sprung into energy before the
close of the 12th century, and speedily acquired pro-
bably more importance than any other town in the
south-west of Scotland. Like other Border-towns,
it suffered severely and lost its records from the
incursions of the English ; but it is traditionally
asserted to have been erected into a royal burgh soon
after Bruce's accession to the throne. Its last char-
ter was granted, in 1612, by James VI., and confirms
all the early charters. The town was twice burnt
by the English,— first, in 1463, by the Earl of War-
wick ; and next, immediately before the granting of
its last charter. In 1484 the recreant Earl of Doug-
las and the treacherous Duke of Albany attempted
to plunder the town on St. Magdalene's fair day;
but they were repelled by the inhabitants. Loch-
maben unites with Dumfries, Annan, Sanquhar, and
Kirkcudbright, in sending a member to parliament.
Constituency, in 1839, 41. Population, in 1831,
within the old royalty, 1,100; but within the new
and more limited royalty assigned by the Reform
act, 966.
LOCH-NA-GAR, or Loch-na-Garaidh, a lofty
mountain of the Grampian ridge, in the united par-
ish of Crathy and Braemar, Aberdeenshire. Its
elevation is 3,777 feet above sea-level. On the top
there is snow all the year round. The ' dark Locli-
na-gar' has been celebrated by Lord Byron in a well-
known ballad of great beauty. In the ' Edinburgh
New Philosophical Journal' for 1830, we find the
view from the summit of the mountain thus de-
scribed : " In one direction our view extended to the
sea at Aberdeen ; in another the vast granite group
of Cairngorm, with its well-known summits, viz.
Bin-na-muick-dui, Cairngorm, Bin-na-buird, Bin
Aven, rose before us in massive magnificence: to the
south, in the distance, rose the trap-hill named Dun-
dee-law, the trap cones of the Lomonds in Fifeshire,
and the beautiful porphyry range of the Pentlands
near Edinburgh ; and, towards the west, the wild
and rugged alpine country of Athole and Badenoch
added to the interest of this varied scene. Around
the mountain, we observed several frightful corries,
bounded by dreadfully rugged precipices. We de-
scended into one of them in order to examine the
snow which it contained, — snow which remains all
the year round. The mass of snow was thirty yards
square, several feet thick ; at the surface its texture
was loose, but below was hard and composed of
granular concretions, and had much of the glacier
character. We met with parties of topaz-diggers in
search of the topaz, beryl, and rock-crystal, which
occur in this and other granite mountains of the dis-
trict, in the granite, either in drusy cavities or as
disseminated crystals. The topaz-diggers find the
gems only in the alluvium, or broken granite, and
generally in that covering the bottoms of corries, or
spread round the foot of the higher granite summits."*
LOCH-NA-GAUL, an inlet of the Atlantic ocean,
on the confines of Inverness-shire and Argyle, nearly
opposite to the point of Sleat in the island of Skye.
There is an excellent parliamentary road from Ari-
saig, on the shores of this loch, to Fort- William, with
a ferry over the Lochv river. Its length is 37 miles
1,087 yards.
LOCH-NA-MHOON. See Aviemore.
LOCH-NA-SEALGH. See Loch-Broom.
LOCHNAW. See Leswalt.
LOCHRUTTON, a parish in the eastern division
of Kirkcudbrightshire ; bounded on the north-west
by Irongray ; on the north by Irongray and Ter-
regles ; on the east by Troqueer ; on the south-east
by Troqueer and Newabbey ; and on the south-west
by Kirkgunzeon and Urr. Its form is nearly ellip-
soidal, with a small angular protrusion on the south.
Its greatest length from east to west is 5A miles ; its
greatest breadth is 4£ miles ; and its area is about
7,000 acres. Toward the south, the west, and the
north-west, the surface is hilly ; but elsewhere it is
an arable valley, interspersed with knolls, mosses,
and meadows. The whole prospect forms a kind of
amphitheatre, and looks slopingly toward Dumfries,
distant from the nearest part 3k miles. The soil,
though various, is, in general, a light shallow loam,
either on white granite, or on a gravellisb, and in
many places a cold, springy bottom. Agriculture
has walked very improvingly over it, and annually
extracts from it a large surplus produce for exporta-
tion. The hilly district was originally heathy ; but,
for the most part, it has completely exchanged its
russet for deep green, or waving yellow. About 350
acres are moss, — worth much in a district where fuel
is expensive.; and about the same number are marsh
or woodland. A little east of the centre of the par-
ish is Lochrutton, a lake, a mile in length, and half-
a-mile in mean breadth, from which the district has
its name. In the middle of it is a circular islet, about
half-a-rood in extent, partly artificial, and every-
where covered with large stones, founded on a frame
of oak planks, and thickly dotted in summer with
flocks and nests of sea-gulls. The lake contains pike
and perch, and emits a streamlet containing trout.
Nearly 2 miles westward is a smaller lochlet called
Deadston-loch. Merkland-well, long a celebrated
and much-frequented spa in the parish, though now
somewhat forgotten by whimsical fashion, is a strong
chalybeate, effectual in agues and in dyspeptic and
* Those, Dr. Macknight remarks, who employ themselves in
searching- for the gems, pay the proprietors a small reot for the
liberty ot searching. The part of the Cairngorm group which
lies to the east, and is called Ben- Aven, is at present reckoned
the most productive, yielding the proprietor about £150 or
£200 a-year. The field is said now to be nearly exhausted —
Vide Werncrian Memoirs, vol. iii. pp. 117, 118.