As I went one way, and returned another, I enjoyed this privilege and pleasure. At Dumfries I could not but recollect that there the poet Burns wrote his

“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled;”

that there he died prematurely worn-out in 1796; that there, as he lay dying, the whole town was convulsed with grief; and that there his funeral was attended by some ten or twelve thousand of the people whose hearts he had touched, and who loved him, in spite of his errors, to the end. “Dumfries,” wrote Allan Cunningham, “was like a besieged place. It was known he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the rich and learned, but of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all belief. Wherever two or three people stood together, their talk was of Burns, and him alone. They spoke of his history, of his person, of his works, of his family, and of his untimely and approaching fate, with a warmth

and enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to my remembrance.” Thinking of Burns, the time passed pleasantly, as I mused, half awake and half dreaming, that early summer morning, till I reached Greenock, where sleeps that Highland Mary, who died during their courtship, and of whom Burns wrote, in lines that will last as long as love, and woman, and the grave—

“Ah! pale—pale now those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly;
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly.
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that loved me dearly;
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary.”

CHAPTER II.
from greenock to ardrossan.

I shall never forget my first view of the Clyde from the heights above Greenock. It is true I had seen the Clyde before, but it was at Glasgow years ago, and it had left on my mind but a poor impression of its extent, or utility, or grandeur. What a sight you have of dockyards, where thousands of men are ship-building! and what a fleet of vessels laden with the produce of every country under heaven! As I take up a Scotch paper, I read:—“The cargoes imported during the month included 64 of grain, &c., 65 of sugar, 22 of timber, 5 of wine, 2 of fruits, 1 of brandy, 1 of ice, 3 of esparto grass and iron ore, 3 of rosin, 2 of oil, 1 of tar, 1 of guano, 1 of nitrate of soda, and 4 with minerals.” And then how grand is the prospect beyond—of distant watering-places, crammed during the summer season, not alone with Glasgow and Edinburgh citizens,

but with English tourists, who find in these picturesque spots a charm they can discover nowhere else. Almost all the way—at any rate, since I left Leeds—I have had my carriage almost entirely to myself; and now I am in a crowd greater and busier than of Cheapside at noon, with knapsacks and carpet-bags and umbrellas, all bent on seeing those beauties of Nature of which Scotland may well be proud.

To leave the train and hurry down the pier, and rush on board the Iona, is the work of a minute, but of a minute rich in marvels. The Iona is a fine saloon steamer, which waits for the train at Greenock, and thence careers along the Western Coast, leaving her passengers at various ports, and picking up others till some place or other, with a name which I can hardly pronounce, and certainly cannot spell, is reached. It must carry some fourteen or fifteen hundred people. I should think we had quite that number on board—people like myself, who had been travelling all night—people who had joined us at such places as Leicester, or Leeds, or Carlisle—people who had come all the way in her from Glasgow—people who had come on business—people who were bent on pleasure—

people who had never visited the Highlands before—people who are as familiar with them as I am with Cheapside or the Strand—people with every variety of costume, of both sexes and of all ages—people who differed on all subjects, but who agreed in this one faith, that to breakfast on board the Iona is one of the first duties of man, and one of the noblest of woman’s rights. Oh, that breakfast! To do it justice requires an abler pen than mine. Never did I part with a florin—the sum charged for breakfast—with greater pleasure. We all know breakfasts are one of those things they manage well in Scotland, and the breakfast on board the Iona is the latest and most triumphant vindication of the fact. Cutlets of salmon fresh from the water, sausages of a tenderness and delicacy of which the benighted cockney who fills his paunch with the flabby and plethoric article sold under that title by the provision dealer can have no idea; coffee hot and aromatic, and suggestive of Araby the blest; marmalades of all kinds, with bread-and-butter and toast, all equally good, and served up by the cleanest and most civil of stewards. Sure never had any mother’s son ever such a breakfast before. It was with something of regret that I