This grumble and others one need not make in Galloway, where strangers not too pock-puddingish about being “done well,” would find a hearty welcome and openings for exploring a country sacred through memories of patriots and martyrs, dotted with ruined shrines and with strongholds of Douglases, Kennedys, Gordons, who in their lifetime loved better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak. From Newton-Stewart, not yet wide awake to its capabilities as a tourist centre, one has half a day’s walk northwards into the heart of the Galloway Highlands, where Merrick raises its heathery Pentedactylon above the lovely Glen and Loch of Trool, one of the fastnesses of Bruce’s _Wanderjähre_. Another goal in these hills is Murray’s Monument, commemorating one of Scotland’s gifted herd-loons, who with homely schooling raised himself to be Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Oriental Languages. Three heights in Galloway bear the name of Cairnsmore, the highest Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, approached from the town of New Galloway by Loch Ken, Kenmure Castle, and the beautiful Glenkens. Passing beyond Carsphairn to Dalmellington, we can strike by rail into the native country of Burns, who at the Galloway spa of Lochenbreck wrote down his “Scots wha hae,” meetly composed by him, it is said, on a wild ride through a stormy night. The chief town of Galloway is Stranraer, port of the shortest sea-crossing to Belfast, by Loch Ryan; but the nearest point to Ireland is Portpatrick, where that saint could step across the Channel long before so much money had been sunk on an abandoned harbour. The lion of Portpatrick is the glen and ruin of Dunskey; as that of Stranraer the grounds of Castle Kennedy, nursing exotics that attest the mildness of this western shore. The Irish express trains dash also past the beauties of Glenluce and its ruins haunted by legends of Michael Scott the Wizard, of Peden the Covenanting prophet, and of that hapless Bride of Lammermoor, whose story seems to have been distorted as well as transplanted to the other side of the country. Luce Bay separates the Mull of Galloway from a broader promontory in which the lochs of Mochrum are perhaps the finest nook. Its southern point is the green “Isle” of Whithorn, where Scottish Christianity was planted by St. Ninian; and still stand fragments of the famous monastery sought by James of the Iron Belt, and many another penitential pilgrim. On the same branch line from Newton-Stewart, Wigtown rears above its bay a monument of that shamefullest tragedy of the Covenanting persecutions, when two women martyrs were fastened to stakes to be drowned by the tide. At the mouth of the Cree is Creetown, “Portanferry” of _Guy Mannering_, from which can be visited caves fit to shelter Dirck Hatteraick, and the ruins of Barholm, that claims to be “Ellangowan,” and to have given concealment to John Knox. Gatehouse of Fleet is a picturesque place in the district