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CHAPTER XVI.

MONETARY CRISIS OF 1857, AND CAMPAIGN OF LUCKNOW, TO TERMINATION OF CONTINUATION OF MY HISTORY OF EUROPE.'

JULY 1857-JANUARY 1859.

Soon after our return we paid a visit of some days to our kind and hospitable friends Mr and Mrs Merry, now of Belladrum, then residing at Culdees Castle in Perthshire, from whence we visited the beautiful gardens of Drummond Castle, which, strange to say, we had never before seen. In some respects they are the most beautiful in Scotland, chiefly from the union they present of wild Highland with the most highly artificial garden scenery. Situated at the edge of one of the most romantic parts of the Highlands, where the Earn forces its way through volcanic mountains, finely wooded, and of the most picturesque forms, it is approached by a long avenue of old beeches, planted on the summit of a ridge of whin rocks. On the right hand, in approaching the house, is a fine sheet of water shut in by overhanging woods: it is not a natural lake, but

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an artificial one, formed by the Duke of Perth after the Rebellion of 1745, to cover the stables, which had been sullied by the presence of the English cavalry in the campaign of that calamitous year, and the remains of which, like the villages beneath the Sea of Haarlem, may still be seen in calm weather far beneath the waves! The gardens, which are celebrated, lie in a valley of an oblong form, immediately behind the castle, shut in by rocky wooded knolls, covered with birch and oak, bringing Trossach scenery close to the last refinements of Italian taste. Six acres in this wood-surrounded plain are laid out in the straight alleys, adorned by the formal spiral evergreens, cool fountains, jets d'eau, and marble statues, which recall the gardens of Florence or Rome. In this combination of the beauties of nature and art, the gardens of Drummond Castle are unrivalled; but in extent and mere horticultural beauty they are not equal to those of Drumlanrig in Dumfriesshire.

I was recalled from these romantic scenes by a request to attend a public meeting in Glasgow, to raise a subscription in aid of the Indian Relief Fund, at which I was asked to move the first resolution. It was held in the Merchants' Hall, with the Lord Provost in the chair. The accounts recently received of the progress of the insurgents, and the massacres of Delhi, Futtehghur, and Cawnpore, had filled every mind with horror, and cast a melancholy air over this meeting. The great merchants were there, and

subscribed their £100 apiece with their wonted liberality; but it was more in pity than in hope. It was easy to see that they were by no means sanguine as to the result, and that in general opinion a dark cloud was settling over our Eastern dominions. The desire for vengeance on the cruel mutineers was the universal feeling; and I faithfully expressed the sentiments of the meeting when I concluded with these words, which subsequent events rendered prophetic: "When Sir Colin Campbell draws the sword which was presented to him by the citizens of Glasgow, I venture to predict that he will strike a blow which shall resound through Europe and Asia, and prove to the world that wide as is the extent of the British dominions, and unbounded the sphere of British beneficence, more terrible is the stroke of British justice, when kindness has been met by cruelty, and fidelity by treason.

But although men's minds were variously agitated by these calamitous events, there was by no means the same enthusiasm which had attended the departure of the troops for the Crimea; and the subscription, which on the former occasion exceeded £45,000 in Glasgow and its vicinity, on this did not reach a third of the amount. This is a very remarkable circumstance, more especially when it is recollected that the Scotch in general, and the inhabitants of Glasgow in particular, are eminently a religious race; that the Crimean war was undertaken to uphold the Mohammedan dominion in Turkey,

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and for a very remote and contingent British interest in the East; and that the Indian contest was undertaken to save our own dominions in Hindostan from dismemberment, to avenge the massacre of our own countrymen, and preserve the foundations of a Christian Government in Asia. This strange perversion of the human mind from what might in the circumstances have been expected, can only be accounted for by recollecting how strongly public feeling in Europe, and especially in this country, had been excited in favour of the Hungarians and against the Russians in the war of 1849, and how strong was the desire then generally felt to repel the Muscovites as the eternal enemies of independence and freedom. This turn of the general mind may perhaps be considered as a proof that mankind are more liable to be violently excited by their feelings than even by their interests, and that they will sometimes combat more enthusiastically for "an idea" than for their material welfare, their religion, their children, or themselves.

Shortly after we paid a visit to Craigdarroch, where Ella, now Mrs Cutlar Fergusson, was happily established, with a kind husband and two beautiful sons. From Craigdarroch we went to Drumlanrig, the noble seat, at no great distance, of the Duke of Buccleuch. It is certainly one of the most remarkable places in Scotland, as well from its vast extent and romantic scenery, as for the exquisite gardens with which the taste of the present Duke

and Duchess have adorned its immediate environs. The house is a rectangular building of great extent, surrounding an inner court built about the middle of the seventeenth century by Inigo Jones, in a style very similar to Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. It is placed on a knoll or eminence, standing in the middle of a little plain, now laid out in ornamental gardens of great extent, and surrounded by low wooded hills. These hills were formerly covered with noble woods of great age, which were nearly all cut down by the last Duke of Queensberry, to whom the estates belonged, who died in 1810. Their place, however, has been supplied by young and thriving plantations, which, although no rivals to the ancient patriarchs of the forest, are sufficiently advanced to give the place a clothed and cheerful appearance. It is a striking characteristic of this fine place, which, so far as I have seen, is peculiar to itself, that the park and surrounding farms so melt into each other that you cannot observe where one ends and the other begins. The gardens are sixteen acres in extent, and laid out partly on the spacious terraces which, after the ancient fashion, adjoined the house, and partly on the little plain, already mentioned, beyond them. They are nearly all visible at once from the highest terrace next the house: the flowers are planted in separate plots, each of one kind only, intersected by little alleys of white sand; and as they are so arranged as all to come into blossom at one time,