Shortly after leaving Æsica, the crags again appear, and the Wall ascends the heights. At Cock-mount-hill, about a quarter of a mile forward, the Murus is four or five feet high. On the Ollalee ground, it is six and seven feet high, and shews on the north, nine courses of facing-stones; at another place, ten courses appear, and the height is six feet four inches.[[118]] The earth-works are seen in the valley below, covered with the whin, called by botanists, Genista Anglica. The continuous sandstone ridge is deeply scarred with ancient quarries.[[119]] Here the view is most extensive, Skiddaw, Crossfell, and other celebrated summits, shewing themselves conspicuously on the south, and Burnswark, a peculiar flat-topped eminence, and several more distant hills, on the north. A truncated pyramid of stones and earth, used by the ordnance surveyors,[[120]] has been left upon the elevated ridge, called Mucklebank-crag.
WALLTOWN-CRAGS.
The next defile that we reach is a very wide one, and is denominated Walltown crags. Walltown consists of a single house, which, though now occupied by the tenant of the farm, bears marks of having formerly been a place of strength, and the residence of persons of consideration. Ridley the Martyr refers with much affection in his valedictory letter to his brother who resided here:—
Farewell, my dearly beloved brother John Ridley of the Waltoune, and you my gentle and loving sister, Elizabeth, whom, besides the natural league of amity, your tender love, which you were said ever to bear towards me above the rest of your brethren, doth bind me to love. My mind was to have acknowledged this your loving affection, and to have requited it with deeds, and not with words alone. Your daughter Elizabeth I bid farewell, whom I love for the meek and gentle spirit that God hath given her, which is a precious thing in the sight of God.
In the crevices of the whin rock, near the house, chives grow abundantly. The general opinion of the country is, that they are the produce of plants cultivated by the Romans, who were much addicted to the use of this and kindred vegetables. This belief is but a modification of the more extended statements of our earliest writers on the Wall. Sampson Erdeswicke in 1574, says—
The Skotts lyches, or surgeons, do yerely repayr to the sayd Roman Wall next to thes, (Caer Vurron) to gether sundry herbs for surgery, for that it is thought that the Romaynes there by had planted most nedefull herbes for sundry purposes, but howsoever it was, these herbes are fownd very wholesome.
Camden gives an account precisely similar.
On the eastern declivity of the gap, and near the line of the Wall, is a well, which, in the district, is generally called king Arthur’s Well. Brand, however, gives a different account of it:—
At Walltown, I saw the well wherein Paulinus is said to have baptized king Ecfrid. It has evidently been enclosed, which indicates something remarkable in so open and wild a country. Some wrought stones lay near it. The water is very cool and fine.
The western ascent is steep. Hutton tells us he was sometimes obliged to crawl on all fours. On the summit are evident traces of a mile-castle.