Tarras Water, a trout-stream of Eskdale, E Dumfriesshire, rising at an altitude of 1748 feet on Hartsgarth Fell, close to the Roxburghshire border,- and running 11 miles south-south-westward through or along the border of Ewes, Canonbie, and Langholm parishes, till, after a descent of 600 feet, it falls into the Esk at a point 2½ miles SSE of the town of Langholm. It has a very rugged channel- and romantic banks. So impetuous is its course, and so obstructed by rocks, that any person whom it might sweep away is in less danger of -being drowned than of being dashed to pieces. Hence the old doggerel:
`Was ne'er ane drowned in Tarras, nor yet in doubt,
For ere the head can win down, the harns are out.'
Another old rhyme, which celebrates the localities in Liddesdale and - Eskdale most noted for game, gives prominent importance to the Tarras:
`Bilhope-braes for bucks and raes,
And Carit-haugh for swine,
And Tarras for the good bull-trout,
If he be ta'en in time.'
'The bucks and roes, as well as the old swine,' says Sir Walter Scott, in a note to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 'are now extinct; but the good bull-trout is still famous.' See Harden.—Ord. Sur., sh. 11, 1863.
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errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from
the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be
different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original
text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity.
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