Ascending the Tyne, we come to Hexham, an imposing town as approached by the railway, with the Moat Hall and the abbey church occupying commanding features in the landscape. The Moat Hall is a large and ancient tower, notable for its narrow lights and cornice-like range of corbels. The abbey church, formerly the cathedral of St. Andrew, is a fine specimen of Early English architecture, of which only the transept and some other ruins remain, surmounted by a tower rising about one hundred feet and supported upon magnificent arches. Here is the shrine of the ancient chronicler. Prior Richard, an attractive oratory: and the town also produced another quaint historian of the Border troubles, John of Hexham. It is an antique place, and almost all of its old buildings bear testimony to the disturbed state of the Scottish frontier in the olden time, for not far away are the Cheviot Hills that form the boundary, and in which the Tyne takes its rise. Similar evidence is also given in Haltwhistle, Hexham's suburb, across the narrow river. [Illustration: HEXHAM.] ALNWICK CASTLE. [Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE, FROM THE LION BRIDGE.] [Illustration: THE BARBICAN GATE.] [Illustration: THE BARBICAN.] Journeying northward through Northumberland, and following the coastline--for here England narrows as the Scottish border is approached--the road crosses the diminutive river Alne, running through a deep valley, and standing in an imposing situation on its southern bank is the renowned stronghold of the Percies and guardian of the Border, Alnwick Castle. The great fortress, as we now see it, was built as a defence against the Scots, and was protected on the northward by the river-valley and a deep ravine, which formerly cut it off from the village, which is as ancient as the fortress, as its quaint old Pottergate Tower attests. Roman remains have been found on the site, and it was also inhabited by the Saxons, the castle at the time of the Norman Conquest being held by Gilbert Tysen, a powerful Northumbrian chief. It was then a primitive timber fortress in a wild region, for the earliest masonry works are Norman, and are attributed to Tysen's descendants. Alnwick Castle is a cluster of semicircular and angular bastions, surrounded by lofty walls, defended at intervals by towers, and enclosing a space of about five acres. It has three courts or wards, each defended formerly by massive gates, with portcullis, porters lodge, and a strong guardhouse, beneath which was a dungeon. Trap-doors are the only entrances to the latter, into which the prisoners were lowered by ropes. From the village the entrance to the castle is through the barbican, or outer gate, a work of gigantic strength and massive grandeur, which has been the scene of many a brave encounter. Near by is the Postern Tower, a sally-port adjacent to the "Bloody Gap" and "Hotspur's Chair." The history of this famous stronghold is practically