In the late 1500s, Timothy Pont travelled the length and breadth of Scotland recording and mapping what he found. Unfortunately not all of Pont’s maps have survived and the maps covering the area of the Debatable Land no longer exist. The best we have are copies made by Robert Gordon and Joan Blaue, a Dutch cartographer, copies of which are available on the National Library of Scotland website.
http://maps.nls.uk/counties/detail.cfm?id=51
and
http://maps.nls.uk/atlas/blaeu/page.cfm?id=78
There is very little detail in these maps but Barngleish is shown which is a farm recorded on a gravestone in Half Morton graveyard associated with James Harkness who died aged 72 years in 1838 (See Debatable Land).
The following, recorded from Blaue’s Atlas 1654, is interesting and presumably came from Pont writing in the late 1500s.
Pagination:unnumbered, 46 Title: Annandia. Nithia, vulgo Nidisdale
“This Nithsdale together with Annandale nurtures a warlike race of men, but they have a bad reputation on account of their raiding. For they occupy the sandy Solway Firth, through which they often went out to England to raid, and in which the inhabitants on both sides in a jolly spectacle and joyous labour hunt on horseback with spears, or fish if you prefer, the salmon with which it abounds.
Of the nature of the rustlers who live in these border valleys of the kingdoms, let John Leslie, himself a Scot and Bishop of Ross, speak: ‘At night they go out from their territory in bands, through pathless places and with many twists. During the day they refresh their horses and their own strength in pre-determined hiding places, until at last in darkness they reach the spot they wish. Having seized the booty, they similarly return by night to their own land by circuitous by-ways. The more skilled a man can be at guiding them through these solitary, tortuous and precipitous places in the midst of gloom and darkness, in the greater honour is he held as outstanding in ability: and they possess such skill that very rarely do they allow their booty to be snatched from them, except that sometimes they are taken by their adversaries if they are led by scent-following dogs [in the vernacular Sleuth-hounds or Bloodhounds, which are often valued at 100 crowns and more] who follow always straight in their footsteps. But if they are captured, they have such power of eloquence and enticements of sweetly flowing words, that they strongly move both judges and adversaries, however severe, if not to pity, at least to admiration and commiseration also.’ “