Possibly upper Jed is not now quite so bad as it was a few years ago, but what of the lower part of that beautiful river? The same may be said of it that may be said of Teviot immediately below Hawick, or of Gala, and, alas! of Tweed, below Galashiels. The waters are poisoned by dyes and by sewage, rendered foul by sewage fungus, reeking with all manner of uncleanness, an offence to nostril and to eye. Five and thirty years ago Ruskin wrote: "After seeing the stream of the Teviot as black as ink, a putrid carcase of a sheep lying in the dry channel of the Jed, under Jedburgh Abbey, the entire strength of the summer stream being taken away to supply a single mill, I know finally what value the British mind sets on the beauties of nature." What, indeed, are the 'beauties of nature' that they should interfere with the glories of commerce! Truly we are a Commercial Nation. Here is the condition of things that Ruskin found in the Borderland in the mid-seventies of last century, as described by him in a lecture delivered at Oxford in 1877. "Two years ago," he said, "I went, for the first time since early youth to see Scott's country by the shores of Yarrow, Teviot, and Gala Waters." Then to his hearers he read aloud from "Marmion" that picture of the Border country which is familiar to everyone: " Oft in my mind surh thoughts awake, By lone St. Mary's silent lake; Thou know'st it well,--nor fen, nor sedge, Pollute the clear lake's crystal edge; Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink At once upon the level brink; {095} And just a trace of silver sand Marks where the water meets the land. Far in the mirror, bright and blue, Each hill's huge outline you may view; Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, Save where, of land, yon slender line Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. Yet even this nakedness has power, And aids the feeling of the hour: Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy, Where living thing conceal'd might lie; Nor point, retiring, hides a dell, Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell; There's nothing left to fancy's guess, You see that all is loneliness: And silence aids--though the steep hills Send to the lake a thousand rills; In summer tide, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear asleep; Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude. Nought living meets the eye or ear,