them dubbed burghs by king James VI.) [ister, and rebuked the Duke of Lauderdale, continues-Wemyss, Buckhaven, Leven, and sundry others of the Malignant nobles, Largo, Elie, St. Monance, Pittenweem, the on the " stool of repentance," in order to two Anstruthers, and Crail. At several of qualify them for being admitted into the these places, if weather permit, the Sove- communion of the true Covenanters. reign takes on board, and lands passengers, Passing Crail a few miles you turn the which gives you an opportunity for extract-point of Fife Ness, the "East Neuk," ing from your now loquacious companion where the spacious bay of St. Andrew's a little of his historical, topographical, and opens before you, its dangerous entrance antiquarian knowledge. being signalized by the beacon on the Carr At Wemyss Castle he will point you out Rock. To the right you see the Isle of the window of the room where Queen Ma- May-Maia Sheepifeda,-and, farther on, ry had her first interview with Darnley. the Bell lighthouse, which will remind you Buckhaven, he will tell you, is a colony of of Sir Walter Scott's beautiful lines," PhaDutchmen, the most pure and undiluted in ros loquitur," and Southey's legendary balScotland, descended from the crew of a lad, "The Abbot of Aberbrothock." In vessel which was stranded on the spot in the distance on the left, the ruined towers the reign of James VI. Leven is a manu- of St. Andrew's, and the conical dun which facturing as well as a fishing town; it grinds gives its name to Dundee, are visible; and bone-dust, and gives title to an earl. Lar- before you, on the opposite side of the bay, go is renowned as the birth-place of Alex-stretch the flat coast and the dim hills of ander Selkirk, the original of Robinson Forfarshire. As you near Arbroath, proCrusoe. The house still remains, being a bably your eye may catch something skimcottage of one story and a garret, in which ming rapidly along the beach, like an exthe father of the imaginary hermit of Juan ploded Congreve rocket on a journey, or a Fernandez carried on his humble craft of Megatherium smoking a cigar. It is a train a shoemaker. Pittenweem was the head-on the Dundee and Arbroath railway. This quarters of the witches of Fife; and on the latter town is a place of very considerable beach, below the town, you will be shown manufactures, especially spinning flax; and the place where the last suttee of them was here you will have a close view of the ruins performed for the benefit of his infernal of the magnificent abbey and its circular majesty, and to the great relief of the window, which serves as a landmark, and pious, witch-fearing, tobacco-hating King is commonly called Big O by sailors. James. Anstruther (Wester) derives éclat from two celebrated personages, natives of the burgh, Maggie Lauder and Dr. Chalmers. The small house in which the latter was born stands close upon the harbor, and the field where the ancient "fair" was held, memorable in song for the scandalous gallivanting between Maggie and Rob the Ranter, lies immediately northward of the town. It was here, also, that the two heroes of the Heart of Midlothian, Robertson and Wilson, were apprehended for robbing the collector at Pittenweem, in 1736, the extraordinary circumstances of which, connected with the escape of the former, and the execution of the latter, caused the famous Porteous mob in Edinburgh, so graphically described by Sir Walter Scott. Crail is an ancient, out-of-the-way place, but has some repute in history. Here the Danes first landed in Scotland, and killed King Constantine in battle. Here John Knox inflamed the fish-wives, with one of his "rousing" sermons, to march with him to St. Andrew's and demolish the splendid cathedral; here Archbishop Sharp was min

Beyond Arbroath stretch for miles the lofty precipitous cliffs of freestone called the Red Head, 250 feet in height, and eaten by the waves into detached colonnades and innumerable caverns, in one of which resides the famous White Lady, who is only visible in a clear day, when the eye can catch a hasty glimpse of her, in a direct line as the steamer passes the mouth of the grotto. This phenomenon is caused by the rays of light penetrating a hole near the inner extremity, and communicating with the surface above. The locality here is the classic ground of the Antiquary; the fishermen of Auchmithy being the prototypes of the Mucklelockets, and the Red Head cliffs the scene of the perilous escape of Miss Wardour.

Farther on is Lunan Bay, and, on rounding the point of Usan, Montrose, with its lofty steeple, its smoking factory chimneys, and its magnificent suspension-bridge, bursts upon the sight. The landscape here is rich, and the scenery picturesque; but the steamer stands often too far out to sea to enjoy it in perfection. From Montrose to

Stonehaven the coast is bluff and rocky; inmates of the Black Hole of Calcutta. A behind it, some dozen miles off, towers the grave-stone in the churchyard of Dunnot great chain of the Grampians, and between tar records the place of their burial, and lies the fertile valley or strath, called the the dismal vault is still called The Whigs' Howe o' the Mearns. Vault. The seaport of Stonehaven, a litFrom this point to Aberdeen there is little farther on, has a handsome appearance; tle to attract the attention, except Bervie the new part of the town being regularly and Dunnottar Castle, near Stonehaven. built with broad, well-paved streets. The coast is the classic region of smoked Leaving all these ancient relics and tohaddocks. The celebrated finnan is pre-pographical curiosities behind, the tourist pared with peat-reek at the small fishing- will find himself, about the tenth hour since village of Findon; and the bervies, quitting Granton pier, entering the hargreatly in request with the Edinburgh and bor of Aberdeen. The average detention Glasgow gourmands, derive their name of the steamer here is four hours, but the from the town so called, where the first time depends much on the state of the spinning-mill built in Scotland for yarn and tide. While lying at anchor here you will thread was erected. have leisure to survey the granite buildings of that northern capital, and also to form a more intimate acquaintance with the Sovereign, by discussing a substantial Scotch dinner, washed down with first-rate Glenlivat, made into hot toddy, which, if well primed and mixed, will impress you at the end of the fourth hour, if your memory keep steady, with rather a favorable opinion of the Highland alcoholic districts. The Sovereign you will find a trim, elegant, spacious vessel, quite able for her latitudes, and ready to oblige every daring son of Adam who burns with desire to get a sight of the North Pole.

the

The ruin of Dunnottar Castle is one of the most majestic in Scotland. It was built in the times of Bruce and Baliol, and continued long the seat of the noble family of Keith. When sailing past it the appearance is strangely fantastic, as it consists of a mass of roofless edifices, so numerous as to resemble a desolate town. It is perched on a lofty perpendicular rock, like a huge inverted tub projecting into the sea, and almost divided from the land by a deep chasm; the summit is level, and contains about three and a half acres. Various his torical associations are connected with this ruin. It was besieged by General Lambert, But the time is up, the steam is on, when Cromwell was in Scotland in 1652, plunging wheels are in motion, and in ten and was eventually surrendered by Colonel minutes you are off, the churned waves reOgilvie of Barras, the governor. The ceding and leaving a foaming track behind, crown and other regalia of Scotland were like a highway on the ocean. The Buldeposited there, and must have fallen into lers of Buchan and Peterhead lie far to the the hands of the besiegers had they not left; but the Sovereign heeds them not, been secretly conveyed away by Mrs. paddling her weary watery way direct to Grainger, wife of the minister of Kineff Wick, which generally occupies ten hours. parish, who buried them under the floor of Here another detention occurs, and frethe church, where they remained in safety quently a long one, from the quantity of till the Restoration. The concealment of goods and passengers to land, cattle to these valuable memorials of Scottish roy- ship, &c. There are few attractions at alty forms the subject of an interesting this place, unless it be the odor of fish, painting by Houston, which was among which are here so abundant that the fields the pictures of the Royal Scottish Acade-in Caithness are sometimes manured with my's exhibition of this year at Edinburgh. herrings. Had you time for a trip into During the persecution under Charles II. the interior, you might regale your eye Dunnottar, like the Bass Rock, was con- with a sight of the cacophonious ruins of verted into a state-prison for the confine- Girnigo Castle or the verdant plantations ment of the refractory Covenanters. Here of Stirkoke. But the Fates and Captain numbers of them were incarcerated in Snowie forbid, and northward away! is the 1685; it is said about 167 men and women, word. apprehended for field-preachings, and treat- The voyage across the stormy Pentland ed with great barbarity, being shut up in a Frith is usually made in five hours, small subterranean vault in the warmest the island of South Ronaldshay being the season of the year, until many of them first of the Orkneys that appears to the perished from foul air, like the wretched left. Advancing onwards you pass Copin

shay, with its "horse," a precipitous rock | tory, which could scarcely yield enough to said to be nearly one thousand feet high. support the few families that occupied it. The view of this island amuses and amazes The Spaniards soon consumed all the travellers. "It presents," says Miss Sin- victuals in the island, devouring fish, fowl, clair, a gigantic barricade of rocks in- sheep, horned cattle, and even horses. habited by millions of birds, which we saw, Famine was the consequence, and the love though I had not time to count them, sitting of self-preservation taught the natives to in rows like charity children with black withhold farther contributions to the stranhoods and white tippets, ranged along every gers, and to secrete, in the darkness of the crevice in the cliffs. Several guns were night, among the recesses of the rocks, the fired, when an uproarious noise ensued, provisions that were indispensable for their which can be compared to nothing but the own existence. Many of the Spaniards hurraing of a whole army. Above, be- perished of hunger, others were thrown by low, and around, the sea, air, and rocks, the famishing islanders over the cliffs into seemed one living mass of birds, screaming the sea. at the full pitch of their voices, rushing through the air, careering to the very clouds, flickering in circles overhead, zigzagging all around us, and then dropping like a shower into the ocean!"

Their destitute situation was, at length, made known to a gentleman in Shetland, Mr. Andrew Umphrey, who farmed the Fair Isle; and, with the assistance of his boats, they were conveyed to Quendal Bay, where the duke became the guest of Malcolm Sinclair, "a worthy Scottish gentleman," until a vessel should be equipped to convey him and the survivors of his crew to the Continent. Tradition says that the duke, having a mind to produce an imposing effect on his hospitable entertainer, dressed himself up in the splendid costume

If the sea is smooth, the steamer takes a narrow channel which lies between Copinshay and Deerness, the most easterly parish in the mainland; and after rounding a bold headland called the Mool, she stands through the String, a rather intricate passage which divides the mainland from the island of Shapinsay. Leaving Thieves Holm to the left, she brings up in Kirkwall of a Spanish grandee, and asked him if he Roads generally between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Her detention here is short, rarely exceeding an hour; and retracing her course down the String, she proceeds northward, passing Stronsay, Sanday, and North Ronaldshay, arriving at Lerwick about four o'clock in the morning, the voyage being generally made in about twelve hours.

This is a dreary, solitary passage, the only human habitation to be met with being Fair Isle, about half way between the two northern archipelagos. It rises "like an emerald in the wide ocean, quite a little world in itself, covered with grass of a most vivid and luxuriant verdure." On nearing this Arctic oasis, you will hear from some of your topographical fellowtourists the Traditionary Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Duke de Medina Sidonia, Commander of the Spanish Armada, in the year 1588. According to this narrative, the ducal commander of the Invincible Armada, after being chased by the English admiral, was driven on Fair Isle, where his anchorless ship struck and went to pieces, himself and 200 of his men effecting a landing in their boats with the greatest difficulty. This was a perilous addition to the population of so small a terri

had ever before seen a person of his rank. and mien? Sinclair being a true Presbyterian, and knowing his guest to be a foreign Papist, bluntly replied in broad Scotch, "Farcie in that face, I have seen many prettier men hanging in the Burrow Muir!" the said locality being then the common place of execution at Edinburgh. The duke and his party, however, did effect their return, having been safely landed at Dunkirk in a vessel equipped for the purpose.

When the rocks of Fair Isle have receded from the view, the two promontories of Sumburgh Head and Fitfiel Head (the White Mountain) salute the eye; and by degrees the shores of Dunrossness and the outline of the mainland are developed in perspective.

"The country," says Dr. Hibbert, "seems to be characterized rather by the number than by the height of its hills; but the nakedness of the surface, which not a tree or shrub interposes to conceal, recalls every chilling idea that may have been preconceived in the mind of hyperborean desolation. The stranger can scarcely avoid contrasting the sterility that appears before his eyes with the richness of the valleys he may have so lately quitted on the banks of the Forth. Shetland truly appears

Indeed, thousands

to be what was long ago said of it by a Stir-of woods and forests. lingshire visitor,' the skeleton of a departed of the natives have no other idea of a tree country," "

than a log of fir, which they may have seen in a Norwegian clipper or a drifted shipHaving landed the tourist in Lerwick, wreck. They cannot understand how it is without being wrecked against the north rooted in the earth and shoots out foliage. pole, or lodged, like another Jonah, in the A phenomenon of this kind would be as stomach of an ichthyosaurus, I shall leave new and marvellous to them as the icy him to select his own amusement, to exa- ocean would be to the scorched negro of mine Fort Charlotte, or gaze on the nume- Central Africa. Dr. Niell mentions that a rous boats that stud Brassay Sound, or native Shetlander, who had spent his days take his ease in his inn, or go fishing for in his own island, having occasion to visit podleys or silloks, or any other occupation Edinburgh, when trees were first pointed that may chance to hit his humor. He will out to him on the coast of Fife, observed, not find our metropolis quite so large as that " they were very pretty;" but, added London or Pekin, or so regularly built as he with great simplicity, "What kind of Edinburgh or St. Petersburg. It has one grass is that on the top of them?" the term street of considerable length, in the form grass, or girse, being applied in Shetland of an amphitheatre, along the shore, with to all herbs having green leaves. Trunks numbers of lanes, or closses, leading back-and branches are found in peat-mosses, wards to a road on an eminence above the showing that trees must have existed at town. The houses are built of grey and one time. But they have vanished. Our white sandstone some of them are hand-groves are merely a few dwarf bushes of some, fitted up with every accommodation birch, willow, and mountain-ash, stunted in modern style. But in viewing the posi-and scattered over the bleak soil, and tion of the place, it will be seen at a glance scarcely of height sufficient to hang a dog. that no architect had been consulted in If there be any other more commanding planning the streets. The oddest angular- specimens of the genus arbor, they are, ites prevail, no order being observed. perhaps, some old plum or sycamore in one Backs are turned to fronts, gable ends to or two gardens, which, at the age of 100 the street, projecting at angles of every de- years, may have attained the stature of forgree. With the exception of those newly ty or fifty feet. Except in these cases, we erected, the tenements appear as if they have nothing in the timber line suited for had dropped from the clouds, and as if eve-higher purposes than making a barber's ry proprietor had made it his original pole, or the rafters of a cottar's shieling. study to be as unlike his neighbor as pos- We have no native coal, but abundance of sible. Gas and stone pavement have been peat; no cholera, but often rheumatism, introduced. We have a court and town-catarrh, and dyspepsia; no Roman Cathohouse, a news-room, a bank, a prison, a ma-lics, but a few Methodists, Independents, sonic lodge, and a manufactory for straw and Anabaptists. Until the passing of the plait. The utmost quiet reigns in the town, Reform Act in 1832, we were unknown in whose echoes are never awakened by the parliamentary representation of the steam-whistles, or mail-horns, or even the wheels of carriage, cart, or gig. The clattering of a shelty's feet is the only noise -except when we have drunken sailorspedestrian, equestrian, or vehicular, that greet the ear.

British empire; but since that time we have had the honor to return half-a-member. Our only musical instrument is the fiddle, for, like all northern nations, the Shetlanders are fond of dancing; but the Presbyterian discipline, true to its puritanWhilst you are enjoying yourself after ical character, discourages these amuseyour own fashion, allow me to revert to the ments, lest they should tend to foster idledescriptive sketch with which I set out,ness and vice. This I think is a mistaken and which has suffered a little interruption rigor, for the effect of such prohibitions is by my account of the voyage. The ab- to check innocent and healthful enjoyment, sence of general vegetation is one of the to induce a morose habit, and clap an exfirst things that arrests the stranger's no- tinguisher on some of the happiest associatice. Every thing looks brown, parched, tions of life. It is said to be a characterisand barren. Our indigenous trees are tic of the colder regions that the people few, scarcely deserving the name, and nev- are addicted to stimulating beverages, but er requiring a visit from the commissioners I cannot accuse my countrymen of that.

Adam delved and Eve span." A plough is a rarer sight here than the constellation of that name. The laird and the minister may have one or two, drawn sometimes by a pair of oxen, sometimes by a quartette of ponies. The harrow is even more primitive in its structure and operation than the

form, and so rude that, like Solomon's Temple, you might suppose no edge-tool had ever been lifted upon it in the making. It consists merely of two parallel bits of wood, about three feet long, with from eight to ten circular teeth in each piece, the whole frame-work being connected at the ends by a cross-bar.

On the contrary, they are remarkable for sheltered from every wind, and of sufficient sobriety; and though Father Matthew has capacity to contain the whole navy of Britnot yet paid us a visit, temperance socie- ain. The spade is almost the only impleties have been established, the effect of ment used in husbandry, for with us agriwhich has been to diminish the sale of in-culture is nearly as much in its infancy as toxicating liquors, and to cause some of our when Noah stepped from the ark, or, to go conscientious spirit-dealers to shut shop, a little further back with Dryden, "when and abandon the traffic altogether, from an honest conviction of its impropriety. We have benefit societies, but their advantages do not seem to be highly appreciated, -owing, perhaps, to the desultory habits and precarious occupation of the people, who would rather trust to the lottery of the sea and the fishing-boat with its immediate plough. It is guiltless of iron in any gains, than to a distant and doubtful reimbursement from a society. The only branch of this benevolent scheme that succeeds is the Fisherman's Fund, for the relief of widows, orphans, and invalids or aged persons. It was established nearly forty years ago, and is understood to have a capital of nearly 3000l. Though we scarcely require the services of the Irish In using them, the employment of animal apostle, we have much need of Macadam. labor is dispensed with, for they are drawn Our roads are miserable. We have no reg- by a man, often by a woman, harnessed to ular highways or turnpikes, and, fortunate them by a rope tied to each end of the parly, no highwaymen. In many parishes allel bars. Sometimes the land is too rough there is not even a foot-path nor a sheep- for a wooden harrow; instead of which, track. The traveller must take the sun or after the ground is delved and sown, a perthe nearest shrub for his compass, and pilot son takes a besom of heather, and sweeps his way over the dreary waste by meaths mould, seed, and manure over head. This from hill to hill, and from toon to toon. substitution of the human being for the There are no public conveyances, no car- brute is degrading enough, but it is not so riages, no carts, no railroads, no bridges, looked upon by us. In former times, it was no canals, no harbors, but only some open not uncommon to make women perform the roadsteads, or winding creeks, called voes, work of horses even in more civilized parts which deeply indent all the larger islands, of Scotland than our remote islands. When and afford great facilities for internal com- the foundation of Heriot's Hospital in Edmunication were the inhabitants provided inburgh was dug, not longer ago than 1632, with the means. It has been suggested the "softer sex were compelled to do the that small steamboats, using peat for fuel, severest part of the drudgery-carting away might be employed as a substitute for land the rubbish! Among the disbursements in conveyance both for passengers and the the treasurer's book for that year, belongproduce of the country; but I much fearing to the hospital, are mentioned the there is neither capital nor enterprise for prices paid for "shakells to the wemeine's such an undertaking. In the absence of hands," also "loks and cheines for thair regular roads, wheeled carts are of little waistes," "item, ane quhip (whip) to the use; but in their stead, ponies with pack-gentlewemen in the cairt, 12s., and " to the saddles are employed. There are a few man that keipis them, 31. 12s." The moparishes-Tingwall, for example-where ney is Scottish, so that the price of iron, tolerable roads for summer are made; but and leather, and the amount of wages in you may judge of their quality for mail or those days, must have been very small. stage-coach purposes, when you learn that Perhaps for the credit of Scotland, I ought during winter they are so broken up, peo-to add the explanation given of these extraple cannot go to church on foot without ordinary facts, to show that in the sevenwading knee-deep in mud. In like man-teenth century females generally were not ner, some of the voes, as that of Hillswick, put to such servile and shocking work. afford safe anchorage for vessels, being The "gentlewemen in the cairt," and the