H. Burdon Richardson, Delt.John Storey Lith.
BOWNESS.
TERMINATION OF THE WALL.
BOWNESS is the name of the low, bow-shaped ness, or peninsula, at the extreme point of the left bank of the Solway Firth. It is slightly elevated above the surrounding country, as is plainly seen when it is viewed from a distance. A little to the east of the site of the station, the Solway is easily fordable at low water; but no one, in the memory of the inhabitants of these parts, has forded the estuary westward of the town. This circumstance would render Bowness a fit place at which to terminate the Barrier Wall. With difficulty the antiquary detects some slight traces of the walls of the station, its southern lines near the church being those which are most apparent. No quarry being within several miles of the spot, the Wall and station have furnished the materials of which the church and most of the habitations of the town are composed. A small altar built up in the front of a barn in the principal street, has an inscription importing that it was dedicated to Jupiter the best and greatest, by Sulpicius Secundianus, the tribune of the cohort for the safety of our lords, the emperors Galbus and Volusianus.
Bowness may be the Gabrosentum of the Notitia; Horsley reckoning Watch-cross among the stations of the line, conceives it to be Tunnocelum.
Over that beautiful expanse of waters bounded by the Criffel and other Dumfriesshire hills, which we see from the somewhat elevated beach that has formed the northern margin of the station, the eye of the Roman sentinel must often have listlessly rolled, as he paced his tedious hours away. The memory of Roman and Caledonian feuds gives to the picture, as we now behold it, a charm enhanced by contrast with the state of things which existed in ancient days. |CHANGE OF TIMES.|The hills have the aspect which they formerly bore, the waters of the Solway ebb and flow as they were wont, the same clear sky spans the vault of heaven which was outstretched in Roman days;—but then, the occupants of the opposite shores scowled upon each other with deadly hate, and planned the means of mutual slaughter. Stealthily they cast the net and threw the leister into the margin of the sea, or when they openly appeared upon the waters, it was in galleys armed for sanguinary aggression;—now, with each returning tide, the fisherman plies his peaceful trade, fearless of harm, and the inhabitants of both the northern and the southern shore hail each other as friends and fellow-countrymen.
The Roman Barrier of the
Lower Isthmus.