This wild country was the scene of a mail-coach tragedy on February 1st, 1831, when the Dumfries and Edinburgh mail was snowed up at Moffat. Eager to perform their duty, the driver and guard procured saddle-horses and flung the mail-bags across them, but a few minutes’ effort proved that it was impossible to proceed with the horses, and the two undaunted men sent them back to Moffat, and went on by themselves, afoot. It was an enterprise of the most hopeless kind, impossible to be accomplished. They sank down exhausted, near this gorge, and perished in the snow. Their bodies were found, a week later, and the mail-bags they had carefully hung upon a wayside snow-post, hard by. To-day, in the old kirkyard of Moffat, two stones to the memory of these brave men, “faithful unto death,” may be found, with the inscriptions: Erected by Subscription in 1835. Sacred to the Memory of James MacGeorge, Guard of the Dumfries and Edinburgh Royal Mail, who unfortunately perished at the age of 47, near Tweedshaws, after the most strenuous exertions in the performance of his duty, during that memorable snowstorm 1st February 1831, and In memory of John Goodfellow, Driver of the Edinburgh Mail Coach, who perished on Errick Stane in a snowstorm on 1st February 1831, in kindly assisting his fellow-sufferer, the Guard, to carry forward the Mail-Bags. The local _Courier_ newspaper of the time, with more truth than feeling, described the act of these devoted servants of the Post Office as “an exaggerated sense of duty.” If you go far enough past the Devil’s Beef Tub and Tweedshaws, where the river Tweed rises, you come, along this old road to Edinburgh, to the “Crook” inn, where the poet Campbell had a curious experience. Taking a generous glass of toddy, he went to bed. Presently there came a knock at the door, and there entered the pretty maiden who had given him supper. “Please, sir, could ye tak’ a neebour into your bed?” “With all my heart,” exclaimed the poet, starting up gaily. “Thank you, sir; for the Moffat carrier’s come in, a’ wat, and there’s no’ a single other place.” This was not what the poet expected. Up came the big reeking man, and exit the little woman. XXXIV The old Glasgow road, that goes up from Moffat past Meikleholmside, and so across Ericstane Muir, is everything a road should not be. It is steep, narrow, exposed, and rugged, and, except as an object-lesson in what our ancestors had to put up with, is a very undesirable route and one in which no one would wish to find himself. It has not even the merit of being picturesque. The road that Telford made continues onward from Beattock in more suave fashion. It follows the glen of Evan Water for nine miles, and the three of them—road, river, and Caledonian Railway—go amicably side by side under the hills, to Beattock Summit and down to Elvanfoot, where the Elvanfoot Inn of other days now stands as a shooting-lodge. [Illustration: BROKEN BRIDGE.]