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clergy, nor poor's-rates, rents are of course high in proportion, or even higher. The farmers who have this rent to pay, must give also higher wages to their labourers, who have no parish assistance to depend upon.-18s. to 25s. a-week, equal to 3s. or 4s. a-day, instead of 2s. or 2s. 6d. generally paid in England. I do not understand how these farmers can live; yet they pay their rents as exactly as in England; and farms are in great request. The national habits of industry and frugality can alone account for their success.

There are no public institutions here for the poor, not even for the old and infirm; no hospitals, but in the large towns. The destitute are assisted by voluntary contributions at the church doors, and private charity. I was informed by Mr. A. of the following circumstance. Seventeen workmen were killed in a coal mine, by the accidental inflammation of hydrogen gas, and a greater number would have perished, if they had not been assisted immediately by the workmen of another mine in the vicinity. The latter raised among themselves a sum of L. 12, for the immediate assistance of the destitute families of those who had perished; and 32 young children left orphans, were immediately distributed among the neighbours and relations of the sufferers. Mr. A. observed, at the same time, that there was more public spirit in England, and more individual charity in Scotland; the natural effect of different circum stances.

During the nine days we have spent at Edinburgh, there has not been a single one without some showers of rain; but we are told it is after a long drought. The temperature of the air varies from 60° to 72°. It is strange to see the women

going about the streets barefooted, on the pavement, which is very smooth, but continually wet; they are in other respects cleanly dressed, even with gloves on, and an umbrella. The fish-market is supplied by women, who come some miles with enormous loads of fish on their backs, strapped across their breast. Their husbands are out all night in their boats, catching these fish, with which the women leave home at break of day. They look strong, healthy, and very cheerful, singing along the road; but in general remarkably ugly; and among the lower people in Scotland, the sex is certainly not beautiful. Pennant says of another part of Scotland, "the tender sex (I blush for the Caithnesians) are the only animals of burden. They turn their patient backs to the dunghills, and receive in their keises or baskets, as much as their lords and masters think fit to fling in with their pitchforks, and then trudge to the fields in droves of sixty or seventy." I might, however, furnish a companion to this picture; for I recollect to have seen in France, that land of gallantry, a woman and an ass harnessed together to the same plough, and the tattered peasant behind stimulating his team with a seemingly impartial whip.

We have reason to be grateful for the hospitality shewn us at Edinburgh, and we do not leave it without regret.

Aug. 21.-Hamilton. We left Edinburgh yesterday morning. The first six miles were through a very fine rich country, well wooded, and full of gentlemen's houses; after that came extensive moors and waste lands, over which cultivation is encroaching here and there. At Lanark, 32 miles, we took a hasty dinner, and walked to the falls of

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the Clyde, three miles. Like all the Scotch rivers, the Clyde is a torrent, rolling its coffee-coloured, yet limpid waters, along a bed of rocks, deeply sunk between perpendicular banks, or walls of rocks, 150 feet high, with bold projections and indentments. An easy path follows the brink of this precipice; the other side of the chasm, rising in full view, is as high, or higher. high, or higher. You soon come to a great fall of the river. Turning a corner, it presents itself in full view, tumbling down broken ledges of rocks, between the two rugged cheeks; this is called Corra-linn. Then soon another fall (Boniton), and another again,-till, after a walk of one mile on even ground, along the precipitous bank, you reach the top of all the falls, and the river, raised to your level, washes the sod at your feet.

Such are the outlines of this wonderful scene; the beauty of which consists in the happy indentments and breaks of the deep rocky banks, affording not merely good points of view for the falls, but admirable details, and an endless variety of picturesque accidents nearer the eye. On the opposite bank, the face of the rock is finely shaped,―very dark,-stained with dripping moisture, and spreading moss, pure white, light green, or brimstone colour. Tufts of fern and shrubs. struggle for life wherever there is any footing, and out of every cleft, trees push forward their knotty branches, and bare roots, creeping plants hanging in wreaths from bough to bough. On either side the hill rises far above the top of these rocky banks, and a hanging wood overshades the path; fountains of pure water spring out of its side, near which resting-places have been provided, thatched over, and lined with moss, as at the Duke of Buccleuch's. Lady Ross is proprietor of this beautiful place, and

the public is certainly much obliged to her for the walk, the fountain, and the resting places; but artists would wish besides to have some means of descending to the bottom of the chasm, so as to obtain a view of the fall fitter for the pencil than the present bird's-eye view; and this might be easily contrived. The opposite bank belongs to a lady also; and both shew their taste in the choice of their residence. I like this place better than Piercefield, which it resembles in the shape of the grounds; but the Wye is dull and slimy,-the Clyde clear and boisterous; and the coffee-tinge of the latter temperates happily the whiteness of the tumbling foam, which otherwise might be too like cascades of magnesia. Quite captivated with the charms of Lady Ross, I paid her a second visit of three hours the next morning, and tried several sketches, but with very indifferent success.

Returning to Lanark, we stopped a moment at a cotton manufactory. It was the first established in Scotland, and the most considerable. It is certainly a prodigious establishment. We saw four stone buildings, 150 feet front each, four stories, each of twenty windows, and several other buildings, less considerable;-2500 workmen, mostly children, who work from six o'clock in the morning till seven o'clock in the evening, having in that interval an hour and a quarter allowed for their meals; at night, from eight to ten for school. These children are taken into employment at eight years old, receiving five shillings a-week; when older, they get as much as half-a-guinea. Part of them inhabit houses close to the manufactory, others at Lanark, one mile distance; and we were assured the latter are distinguished from the others by healthier looks, due to the exercise this distance

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obliges them to take,-four miles a-day. Eleven hours of confinement and labour, with the schooling, thirteen hours, is undoubtedly too much for children. I think the laws should interfere between the encroachments of avarice and the claims of nature. I must acknowledge, at the same time, that the little creatures we saw did not look ill.

The prodigious increase of manufactories in England, and the application of the force of water to their machinery, threatened equally the purity of mountain-streams and of morals; but farther improvements in mechanics have led to another mode of applying the force of water, and, instead of its weight, its expansion is now made subservient to the arts. The steam-engine is an agent so convenient, so powerful, and so economical, in a country abounding with fossil coal, that falls of water have been abandoned; but the great manufactory of Lanark had been established before that period. The cost of the steam-engine and fuel is more than compensated by the advantage of saving the transportation of both the rough materials and the manufactured articles; of being on the spot of consumption or exportation, and where a great population furnishes workmen, rather than among deserts and mountains. I understand there are now even grist-mills worked by the steamengine.

We set out from Lanark on foot, to visit, in our way, the course of the Mouse, an imperceptible little river, at the bottom of a frightful chasm, quite out of sight and hearing, from the great depth of its banks. The path along the top is, in some places, so narrow and slippery, as to make you cling to the trees and bushes instinctively.