Ronan's Well_.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH AND MONASTERY OF THE HOLY CROSS, PEEBLES, AD
1261.]
There was a St. Mungo's Well in Peebles, and Mungo Park was intimately
associated with the town. He was born at Foulshiels, Yarrow, in the same
year as Sir Walter Scott, 1771, just one hundred years before our visit,
and, after studying for the Church, adopted medicine as his profession.
He served a short time with a doctor at Selkirk, before completing his
course at the University of Edinburgh, and sailed in 1792 for the East
Indies in the service of the East India Company. Later he joined an
association for the promotion of discovery in Africa, and in 1795 he
explored the basin of the Niger. In 1798 he was in London, and in 1801
began practice as a doctor in Peebles. He told Sir Walter Scott, after
passing through one of the severe winters in Peebleshire, that he would
rather return to the wilds of Africa than pass another winter there. He
returned to London in December 1803 to sail with another expedition, but
its departure was delayed for a short time, so he again visited Peebles,
and astonished the people there by bringing with him a black man named
"Sidi Omback Boubi," who was to be his tutor in Arabic.
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