Egyptians and Arabs, with whom the wearers came into violent contact during England's recent so-called wars. Bruce's address to his army at Bannockburn, as put into his mouth by Robert Burns, came to me as I gazed upon this memorable field: "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Or to victory! "Now's the day, and now's the hour; "Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! "Wha for Scotland's king and law The sun was setting as we rattled past Stirling Castle, a very monument of history. Within its walls, in 1124, died Alexander I. In 1304 the castle for three months defied Edward I. of England, and when Oliphant surrendered, he had held the fort with 140 men against the whole of the English forces. From the battlements the garrison beheld the bloody battle between the Bruce and Edward II. The Stuarts made Stirling a royal residence, and built the palace which now forms a portion of the castle. The exterior of this historic pile is much more interesting that the interior, since the latter has beenmodernized. The view from the ramparts is striking and of great extent. The Church of the Gray Friars, a charming bit of fifteenth-century Gothic, is in the heart of the town. In this church James VI. was crowned, in 1567. The old bridge still stands, which once upon a time was the sole, solid means of communication between the North and South of Scotland-the very gate, as it were. We arrived in Glasgow before the wee sma' hours, after a most enjoyable "day off," full of eolor, mountain, lake and wood, and with the variety of steamboat, coach and rail. "I'll give you a better outing next week," observed my pal, as we parted, "but it will take three days. Through the Kyles o' Bute; up the Crinan Canal to Oban, sleep at Bannevie, and up the Caledonian Canal. Next day to Inverness, sleep at Inverness, and the following morning take the Highland Railway, through the Pass of Killiecrankie, back to Edinburgh !" "Done with you," said I. What a glorious morning that was, as we traveled by the seven o'clock train from Glasgow to Greenock to board the Iona, a steamer which not only the North Briton, but the Briton generally, is pleased to consider equal, if not superior, to any of our palace pleasuresteamers. She is an exceedingly handsome, commodious, well-appointed boat, her cookery is beyond all praise, and her speed twenty knots. She boasts of three decks, a news-stand, a barber-shop, and a boot-blacking room. She is entirely devoted to the tourist, and for four months in the twelve does a roaring business with the cream of Cockneydom. The get-up of the tourists, male and female, defies description. To me, the bizarre appearance of the British tourist, if not a thing of beauty, is a joy for ever, and on the Rhine, in Switzerland, and in Scotland, the genus is at its very best. The Iona steams through some charming scenery to a place called Ardrishag, where the boat is usually met by a stalwart chieftain, a Mac-something-or-other, in the kilts, a sun-kissed, six-foot-two specimen of a Highlander, a snick of whose dirk would mean "unco bluidie wark the morn." The sight of this personage gave us great pleasure, and a sort of foretaste of what was coming when we should get into the fastnesses which loomed up purple from the direction in which our bow was turned. A couple of neat little steamers awaited us at Ardrishag for the passage along the Crinan Canal. This canal is so zigzag and winding that the male excursionists walk-ay, and most of the females-taking short cuts, striking the boats before they reach the long level after the last lock. At all the locks two mangy-looking pipers, in the kilts, regaled the tourists with melancholy and wheezy skirls on the bagpipes, in return for which they received a shower of baubees, and they skirled the louder as the welcome copper rain sprinkled the surrounding heather. We had some genuine Highland laddies on board, all of the Clan Campbell, who were repairing to Oban to attend the annual games. These gentlemen were "unco" proud and stiff, and they looked very picturesque in the national costume. They unbent, however, after luncheon, and it was a sight to see them drink a Gaelic toast, every man standing on his chair, his right foot on the table, his "skean dhu❞— black knife, or dirk-in his right hand, his glass in the left, which he tapped with the cold steel, at a given signal tossing off its contents. I should mention that the Crinan Canal is 9 miles long, 24 f et broad, 12 deep, and the proud possessor of 15 locks. It was excavated in the last century, and constructed for the purpose of avoiding the circuitous passage of 70 miles around the Mull of Kintyre, on the route from Glasgow to Inverness, by the Caledonian Canal. It taps Loch Gilp at one end, and Loch Crinan, on the Sound Jura, at the other. We parted with our boats at the end of the canal and boarded the Chevalier, a sturdy little steamer that buffeted a pretty rough sea till we arrived at Oban, one of the "swellest" of Scottish watering-places. It sits in the lap of a motherly mountain, and pert-looking granite terraces give upon a small bay dotted with yachts of all sorts, shapes, sizes and dimensions. This little bay is protected from every wind by the Island of Kerrera on the west and by the high shores of the mainland, and is overlooked on the north by the picturesque ruins of Dunolly Castle. It is from 12 to 24 fathoms deep, and, although the girdle of hills that seems to surround it gives it the appearance of a lake, it is easily accessible. Within three miles of Oban is Dunstaffuage Castle, which is said to have been the seat of the Scottish monarchy previously to its transference to Scone. The Stone of Destiny, which now supports the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, and over which Queen Victoria sat on the occasion of her Jubilee, came from Danstaffnage Castle, and was carried to the Abbey from Scone by Edward I. A band, composed of members of the crew of an enormous steam - yacht, discoursed "Patience as we landed two-thirds of our tourists, and we steamed away to the enlivening strains of "The Magnet and the Churn." The shades of night were falling fast as we sped toward Bannevie, our landing-place. We were in the purple gloom, still, grand, awful! No one spoke. The only sound was the splash, splash, splash of the paddles in the black, glassy waters Not a light was to be seen, and it appeared as though we drifted into immeasurable darkness. The perfume of the heather came to us, making the air deliciously fragrant. Presently the paddles slowed, and voices came out of the night. A light twinkled, and we were alongside the wharf, where all the village awaited and discordant voices broke the enchantment. Our hotel was spacious, but everything in connection with it seemed to say, "You are only going to stop the night. You are only seven and sixpence. Hurry up and get out!" The Caledonian Canal, which we were to traverse on the morrow, is a chain of natural lakes united by artificial canals, running across the north of Scotland in a straight line, from northeast to southwest, from the North Sea to William. The ship communication is 60 miles long, 37 miles being through natural lochs or lakes, and 23 miles being artificial cuts. Each cut is 120 feet broad at the surface, 50 at bottom, and 17 deep. There are 28 locks, each of 170 to 180 feet long and 40 wide, with a rise or lift of water of 8 feet. Eight of the locks, called Neptune's Staircase, occur in succession near the west end of the canal. Ships from 500 to 600 tons can pass through the canal, which was opened in 1823. After a breakfast, in which "Finnan haddie" predominated, top-dressed by marmalade, we boarded a long and narrow propeller, gayly attired in bunting, which announced its departure by the discharge of a rusty piece of ordnance, whereof the amateur artilleryman seemed the Atlantic, through Glenmore, or the Great Glen of Albin, in Inverness-shire, and touching Argyleshire at the south end. The sea and freshwater lochs are Beauly, Ness, Oich, Lochy, Eil and Linnhe. The canal was formed to avoid the dangerous and tedious navigation of ships, especially coasting vessels, round by the Pentland Firth, Cape Wrath, and the Hebrides; the distance between Kinnard's Head and the Sound of Mull by this route being 500 miles, but by the canal 250, with an average saving for sailing vessels of nine and onehalf days. The northern end of the Caledonian Canal begins in Beauly Firth, near Inverness, whence a cut of 7 miles joins Loch Ness, which is 24 miles long by 1 wide. A cut of 6 miles joins Loch Ness with Loch Oich, which is 3 miles long by 1 in width. Loch Oich shakes hands with Loch Lochy through a 2-mile cut, and a fourth cut of 8 miles puts Loch Lochy in good terms with Loch Eil, which is two miles north of Fort BEN LOMOND. wofully in dread. The scenery along both sides of the canal is at once wild, picturesque and romantic. Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain, frowned upon us, and glens gruesome in inky shade gloomily bade us adieu. The day was gray, and as Nature demands her bit of red, the crimson Scotch bonnets-Tam o' Shanters-worn by some of the tourist ladies showed to wondrous advantage against the leaden sky. Over the border. THE TROSACHS. "I could tell a Scotchwoman in ten | She was not typically Scottish by any means, and I stood thousand English by the indescribable manner in which she wears her bonnet." "Can you point me out one ?" I asked, ungallantly. as one who cries Check to an opponent; but she spoke, and it has a history. A fort was originally built here by General Monk, that taciturn personage who restored the Stuarts to the throne of England, and received Charles II. on the "tight little island" on the 29th of May, 1660. This fort was subsequently rebuilt by King William III., of "great, glorious, pious and immortal memory." It was besieged by the Highland army, who went out in the '15 for the Pretender, and in the '45 for Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was the key to the Highlands. Now it is a rendezvous for Cockney tourists. Fort Augustus, in Loch Ness, which we tarried at later in the day, was built for the purpose of overawing the Highlanders. That it did not produce the desired effect is evident from the fact that they took it in 1745. But it was recaptured, and the "Butcher of Culloden," the Duke of Cumberland, made it his headquarters. We have changed all that now, for in 1867 this formidable fort was purchased from the Government by Lord Lovat, and it is now a Benedictine monastery; hooded monks on duty within its walls, and the bell summoning to the Angelus instead of to the "imminent deadly breach." As an enthusiastic amateur guide pointed out, in a gloomy gorge, Tor Castle, the grim and ancient seat of the Camerons of Lochiel, there came a burst from many throats: "Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! We stopped for thirty minutes at a quaint little landing-place to enable us to view the Falls of Foyers, the Niagara of Great Britain. The grand desideratum is to view them from above, and it is stiff collar work to do that climb. Amorous swains, holding the hands, arms, and yea, even the waists of fair ones, relished the ascent, while stout parties got badly left, and even buxom maidens were deserted about half way up. The fall is ninety feet, in a white cotton wisp, and most charming to the eye, the perpetual mist arising from the sheer fall keeping the ferns and mosses and lichens on the reddishgray rocks a vivid and luminous green. There is a sccond fall a mile inland, but we had none of it. We left a pair of babes in the wood, alias a brace of lovers. The unromantic captain thought more of Inverness than Cupid, and, after blowing several notes of warning, hoarsely ordered his attendant imp to "go ahead," instantly echoed to the genii of the engine-room. The dismay of the young lady's 300-pound mamma was ludicrously tragic, and the information that a walk of eight miles would bring the lovers to the next landing, where she could go ashore and await their arrival, scarcely seemed to reassure her. She reviled the captain without using a single h, and prophesied his instant dismissal, followed by imprisonment for life, consequent upon her intended complaint. "Bless ye, mum," he cheerily observed, "we lose a couple o' brace every day, regular, and they always turns up at naming a village, the seventeen letters of which I dare not attempt to write. The eleven tiny lakes we passed through-tiny when compared to some of our most picturesque pondletswere inexpressibly charming to the eye. So green, so wooded, so soft in ontline, so well defended by color glowing mountains! I do not think I ever beheld smoke so blue as that which slowly ascended to join the azure from the peat-constructed roof of the sheeling, or the granite chimneys of the lordly manor house. of our canal journey, a quaint old town with a goodly leaven of history in its composition. Inverness is the capital of the Highlands. It is surrounded by wooded mountains of various heights, and it sits intrenched on the River Ness. Its first charters as a burgh were granted by William the Lion, A.D. 1165-1214. By one of these it is stipulated that when the King has made a ditch round the burgh the burgesses shall make a palisade on the edge of the ditch and keep it in good repair for ever. In 1411 the town was burned by Donald, Lord of the Isles, on his way to Harlaw. Macaulay, writing of the year 1689, describes Inverness as a "Saxon colony among the Celts, a hive of traders and artisans in the midst of a population of loungers and plunderers, a solitary outpost of civilization in a region of barbarians." Castle Hill, upon the south side of the town, was the site of a castle, which, in 1303, was taken by the adherents of King Edward I. of England, but subsequently retaken by those of King Robert Bruce. King James I. held a Parliament in this castle in 1427. The palladium of the burgh, the famous Clach-na-cuddie, a lozengeshaped blue slab, stands beside the town cross in the High Street. All tourists stand gazing at them with eyes and mouth wide open. Hard by this ancient burgh is the field of Culloden, which proved the destruction of the Stuart cause and dynasty. It is a desolate tableland, partly cultivated, and known as Drummossie Moor. Here, on the 16th of April, 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie took his last stand, surrounded by his faithful Highlanders, and played his last stake for the Crown of England, his rightful herit age. The "rats of Hanover" were, however, too much for him, and the butcher Cumberland, already mentioned, displayed that furious cruelty toward the vanquished which to this hour renders his name an execration. Green mounds and a cairn, with stones and inscriptions, mark the spot where the fight was the fiercest, and where many of the slain lie buried. It was early morning, and a proverbial Scotch mist enshrouded everything in its cold and clammy embrace, as we wandered over the moor, endeavoring, map in hand, to locate the clans in the order of battle. Suddenly we almost stumbled over an old shepherd, his plaidie muf fling him up to the rim of his bonnet, his sheep huddling around him, his colly one ear erect and both eyes wide open. "Hurrah for Bonnie Prince Charlie !" I cried. The old man reverently removed his bonnet, and, glancing upward, responded: "God bless him." And they will tell us that Jacobitism is dead in the Highlands. In the town of Inverness is a very unpretending-looking shop, with two small windows, not of plate-glass, carelessly filled with bales of goods, principally of check designs, and here and there a bonnet or cap, such as Highland regiments wear in undress. Against this store, and the proprietor thereof, we were duly and seriously warned. "It is kept by one Macdougal," we were told; "he is called the Robber of the North. When you go into his den, you are despoiled of all your available cash. His tongue is oily, his goods are seductive, especially his homespuns; and it is not considered good form unless you return across the border with a memento from Macdougal's of Inverness." Like unto Cameron of Lochiel, we laughed at the warn ing-flouted, gibed and jeered at it. We boldly entered the robber's cave, met the dangerous villain face to face, The sun had set when we arrived at Inverness, the end inspected his treasure, and-when we returned to our hotel, telegraphed for money to enable us to return to Edinburgh. The run down to the Lowlands, by the Highland Railway, was all too short. We craned our necks in the Pass of Killiecrankie, where the " bloody Claver'se," according to the Covenanters, the "gallant Graeme," according to the Jacobites, fought to the bitter end, gaining a brilliant victory for his exiled and deserted monarch. Dundee fell by a musket shot while waving on one of his battalions to the charge, and died in Blair Castle, whither he was so sorrowfully borne. At Perth we staid over to see, not the "Fair Maid," Sir Walter Scott's charming damsel, but the "Fair City," as it is justly called. It is at Perth that Queen Victoria halts for one hour to "bait," the refreshment rooms at the railway station being the handsomest in Great Britain. Beware of the famous Prestonpans ale, which is so temptingly advertised by freckled and bonnie barmaidens of Perth. It is cool, refreshing, delicious; but it flieth into the head, and man maketh an ass of himself while its spell is upon him. I quaffed the contents of one stone jar, and felt simply immense. quaffed the contents of a second, and was compelled to seat myself, aided by my pal, in a remote corner, to the music of titters from behind the bar. I The charming scenery of the immediate vicinity of Perth; the Tay, a broad, noble river, sweeping southward along its eastern side; and the superb background of the Grampians on the north, render the "Fair City" exceedingly interesting and beautiful; while its rank, as in some sort the ancient metropolis of Scotland, the important role it has played in the history of the country, and the picturesque associations with which history and fiction have invested it, claim for it a high rank among the cities of Scotland. We wandered through the extensive and charming public parks, the sward as soft as velvet, and minus that direful sign, “Do not walk on the grass." I do not know a more reposeful spot, "far from the madding crowd," yet within its hail, than a seat underneath the elms in the South Inch. I spent a week in Edinburgh, and spent it wisely and well. As the modern Athens has already been described in the POPULAR MONTHLY, I shall add nothing. I made pilgrimage to "Melrose Abbey," but did not see it aright, for the moon was not due for several hours, and the sun was on duty. It is a cruel blight to one's high imaginings to find the abbey giving on a dirty street, and entrance through a dirty lane and the stuffy atmosphere of shabby houses. I also made pilgrimage to Abbotsford, the lovely home of Sir Walter Scott, where, in company with about twenty of Cook's excursionists, we listened to the singsong of a soulless guide, who, whilst vocally reveling in border history, was engaged in a mental calculation as to the "baubees" that were to clink into the willing palm at the Postern Gate. I staid behind to cast one long, last look at the only authentic likeness of Mary Queen of Scots, but was summarily ejected by a rear guard, who peremptorily requested me to move on. However; it is rather nice of the proprietor to let the "oi polloi" view the home of the "Wizard of the North," the armor, the books, the fishing paraphernalia, and the pictures even, at a baubee a head. With a picnic at Dryburgh Abbey ended my Dash into the Land o' Cakes, and, the gods willing, I hope to go over the same ground once again. "SELF-PRESERVATION is the first law of Nature," but too many in this world act as if it was the only one. THE KING OF BRENTFORD. "And yet we need not quit French song-writing, for here's an in.1. tation of Béranger's first song, the Roi d'Yvetot'; a glorious chant it is, and, we presume, utterly untranslatable; but The King of Brent ford is by no means to be despised." "It était un Roi d'Yvetot."-BÉRANGER. THERE was a King in Brentford, Could sleep and eat right well. It was his crown of state; All in a fine straw castle He ate his four good meals, A dog ran at his heels; There were no evil habits With which this king was curst, And monarchs must have sport; His Grace he kept a quart. He pleased the fine Court ladies No bootless conquest made, His peaceful realm he swayed; Through all his kingdom wide, Save when the good man died. Beside an alehouse-door; Regard that honest phiz, That knew no reign like his. ONE-EYED ANIMALS. Ir has long been a puzzle to those who trouble themselves to find a rational explanation for traditions, how the idea of a race of monster men with a single eye in the centre of the forehead originated. For this widely spread tradition no satisfactory rational explanation has been offered. It was, however. passingly alluded to in a lecture by Mr. Baldwin Spencer at the Royal Institution on "The Pineal Eye in Lizards," and, although the allusion cannot readily be converted into an explanation, it affords grounds for curious speculation. Deeply seated in the human brain there is a blunt "process known as the pineal gland. Unlike the rest of the brain it is hardened by a kind of chalky deposit. and its 31gnificance and function have long been a puzzle to anatomists. One of the most celebrated speculations respecting it is that of Descartes, Who suggested that it might be |