the N. W., suddenly shut out the view, when turning our eyes to our road, ample amends were made by the chearful and totally different prospect which presented itself. A

fine intervening country, hill and dale, as far as the eye could reach, studded with farms and habitations of every variety. The town of Tralee under us, at three miles distance: and beyond it, and to the left, the spacious bay of Tralee, and the coast to Kerry head at the mouth of the Shannon, with several small islands; the Atlantic Ocean beyond them, bounded only by the horizon, with the setting sun sinking behind it in all his majesty, unobscured by a single cloud. In good humour with every thing, we entered Tralee with just light enough to find Dwine's Inn, by the direction we had got at Killarney. We found this a very comfortable quarter, and while tea was preparing we sauntered through the town, the night being sufficiently light to give us a tolerably good idea of its appearance. We observed the market-house lighted up, and were informed it was for a ball, and we passed it as several ladies were entering, who had ventured full dressed, through the street, without coach or sedan, which impressed us so much in their favour, that could we have done it with propriety, we would gladly have joined their evening's amusement. Although, as it was a bail night, we might have supposed many of the genteel inhabitants would be engaged there, yet the street appeared quite alive with walking parties, who seemed to use it as their accustomed mall. It is indeed a fine spacious street, with well built houses, mostly of three stories, on each side, terminated by the market house, round which, par ticularly on one side, is a large open area or square surrounded by good houses and shops. On the whole, we concluded Tralee to be about

the same size as Killarney, from which it is thirteen miles, not so regular, with some better houses, and some worse, but much more gay and busy. The proprietor is Sir Edward Denny, who has an old house shut out from the main street by a dead wall in the old-fashioned way. It has a port in the mouth of the river at the head of the bay, about half a mile distant, which is occasio nally used by coasting vessels, but it has no foreign trade. It is the county town, and has a church, a chapel, a gaol, and a barrack, in which four companies of the Meath militia were now quartered. We were informed that there is a mineral spring near the mouth of the river, which has some approved medicinal qualities, but we were too impatient to see the great river Shannon, to delay next morning for the purpose of visiting it; so rising early, we set off to make one stage before breakfast. Our road led three miles over an elevated moor, or heath, partially inhabited, after which the country improved as we advanced. At about five miles we passed to the right of the ruins of Abbey Dorney, and four miles farther Lisnaa, a neglected and almost ruined large old seat of the Earl of Kerry; whose father, the late Earl, as we were informed by a countryman, is buried in a tur. ret on a hill about a mile further to the left, which he had built during. his life to serve for his tomb. The ruin, the turret, and the very high old steeple of Rattoo, owned by the family of Gunn, still further to the left, had been conspicuous objects in the view over this flat country the whole morning. As we advanced. the flat contracted itself, until at four miles further, crossing a fine bridge of eleven arches over the river Feale, we ascended a steep, but not high hill, into the small town of Listowell, where, after fasting for so long a stage, we did ample justice to

very good breakfast. Mr Hare of Cork, the proprietor of Listowell, has built a very large house here for an inn, which is tolerably well kept, it being a post-house, where chaises may be had by travellers. There is here a post-office, a market house, a church, and a chapel, and we walked to the ruin of a very high old castle which impends on the brow of the hill over the Feale, and is a fine object at a distance, but has nothing besides worthy of notice. The country begins here to be hilly, and shows some fine situations on the banks of the Feale upwards. Leaving Listowell and the river behind us, we ascended into a more elevated country, where we travelled on a high level, with extensive moois and bogs on each hand, but well inhabited; the pea santry residing in hamlets in a neighbourly way, as on the road between Glasgow and Edinburgh; the largest of these is dignified by the name of Newtownsands. Fatigued with the bleak open prospect, for seven miles from Listowell, we had ample amends made us, by coming suddenly on one of the most interesting views we had seen in this country, not even excepting those round Killarney. Before us, the road Jescending by a gradual slope between two hills, which as they approached formed a vista, through which, at a mile before and below us, we saw the village of Tarbet beautifully situated on the banks of the Shannon-the Gorgon, a ship of war of forty-four guns, and three gun boats in the harbour-Sir Edward Leslie's fine seat on the left point of the harbour, and some islands in the river-the opposite bank of the river at three or four miles distance, with the county of Clare rising gradually into a very distant baok ground, the outline finely varied by hills and mountains of various shapes and distances--and as we wound down the hill, the vista still chan

ging, until at last leaving the hills behind, the view opens on each hand, shewing us this noble riverabout fourteen miles both up and down.

To enter into the minutia

of the prospect is impossible; let it, suffice that it was the most striking. and most pleasing to us, of any we had hitherto seen. There is a. church, and some tolerable houses in Tarbert; but as nothing invited us to stop, we pursued our road, along the top of some fine rising grounds, which skirt the river, which is sometimes seen, sometimes concealed, so as to present a constant variety.

We stopped at half a mile from Tarbert, at a neat cottage, to shelter from a heavy passing shower, after which we walked to a handsome new house, on which the workmen were employed, on a rising ground to the left of the road, and a little nearer the river, to which there is a descent of a quarter of a mile. Being on a part of the hill which projects towards the river, it commands a very fine prospect, particularly downwards over Tarbert point below, and Scatarie island. It belongs to a Capt. Fitzgerald. Some officers of a detachment of the 72d, regt. quartered in Tarbert, were enjoying the prospect as well as ourselves.

road from Fort-William to his new castle of Achnacarry, as well as a bridge over the Arkaig at that place from thence the road might be carried up the narrow glen stretching northwards, when it would come into Glengary, at the house of Greenfield, near the head of the loch. Now, as far as I can recollect, from Fort William to the river Gary, by this course, is not above ten or twelve miles; whilst, if the common road by Letterfinlay is followed, it is little short of 30. Then going over at the lowest place of the farm of Inchlaggan, and shro' a small river at the bottom of a lake, it would take a slaunting direction up the side of a ridge towards an opening in the hills opposite to Loch-Cluny. From the house of Cluny a glen opens straight in the line leading into Lord Seaforth's forest, and so on to the upper parts of the country of Loch Carron. Here it would be necessary to take a turn to the North-East to avoid the dreadful mountains belonging to Gairloch, Letterewe, and Dundonald. It might indeed be taken from the chapel in the country of Loch Carron across the mountains eastward of Sir Hector M'Kenzie's forest to Kinlochewe, near the head of Loch Mari; but as it must necessarily turn to the N.E. there at any rate, and the brae of Loch-Carron being rather steep, the former seems preferable. There is a part of the middle country there which I have not seen; but I was informed that it might be carried almost straight forward to Loch-Shin in Sutherland, where it might either join the old road leading towards Far, or be carried in a more westerly direction. Now I am certain it will appear evident to every one acquainted with the local situation of this long neglected country, that this is the readiest plan for opening it up so as to participate in the advantages accruing to the other parts of the kingdom, from trade, manufac

tures, and markets. It will be ob served, that this line I have pointed out lies nearer to the western than the eastern coast. This is highly requi site; as the eastern districts are well interspersed by good roads already, while it is well known what inconveniences the western shores labour un-' der, for want of them. The new lines of road making, or about to be made, from the Caledonian canal to the western coast, as well as the cross roads north of that, can only be of service to these particular glens alongst which they run; or to the western isles from which a good pas sage to the south was very much wanted but to the other extensivé Highland districts they can do no good, for want of a western communication with one another: for when once a person gets into one of them, he cannot get out again, neither to the north nor south, for rugged mountains and extensive arms of the sea, until he comes back again to the great canal, or the eastern coast where he first entered; when he must go in search of another opening where there is a road from east to west.Now the making of a passage alongst the western coast being, from the nature of the country, rendered impracticable, until once these cross roads are all joined by one in the interior, they will be found only to form necessary appendages of an imperfect whole. But that, by crossing every possible tract from the east to the west, opens a communication with each district from every other part of the country. At the head of Loch Garry it will cross the intended new road from the canal to Loch Ourn. At the inn of Cluny it will cross the old military road from Fort Augustus to the isle of Skye by the pap of Glenshiel. This road is terribly out of repair; and though the bridges are standing, it is so rough and cut with the mountain torrents, that it is extremely dangerous

to

to ride even on the highland ponies, though the surest-footed animals alive. In the upper parts of the vale of Loch-Carron it will cross the post road from Inverness to New Kelso and the western isles, which is about to be made a road, for at present it is scarcely worth the name. A few miles farther north it will cross that leading from Dingwall to Applecross and the Lewis ferry at Pool-Ewe: and at the east point of Coigarch, on the border of Sutherland, it will cross the road from Dingwall and Tain to Ullapool.

Besides the inconveniences already mentioned with respect to droves, &c. these countries labour under the most discouraging and poignant disap. pointments for want of the means of early intelligence. The whole of the western isles of Inverness-shire, in which alone there are upwards of 30,pco inhabitants, with all the south-west districts of Ross-shire, are dependant, for the conveyance of their letters, upon one runner from Inverness to Loch-Carron. This man's course lyes up StrathConor and over the mountains, and often impeded by deep and rapid rivers, flooded and impassable. The boats which carry the mails westward are often in like manner impeded by contrary winds; and if a fair wind offers, it being expensive for them to stay from home, they set off as pleasantly without the bags as with them; satisfied that they have gone the errand for which they contracted, and that no more can be required of them. The consequence of all this is, that before a letter from Edinburgh reaches the long island, a month commonly elapses, even in the midst of summer. In winter it is sometimes two; so that were a man to write from thence on business ever so important, the soonest that he can depend upon an answer is a quarter of a year after; and the rest of the countries, though

nearer, must suffer in proportion.→→→ This must be the more lamented, when it is considered that many thousand pounds worth of kelp is annually manufactured upon these shores, and wool to a large amount shorn from the sheep upon their mountains; most of which business must be transacted by agents; and how often must the owners of these staple commodities miss their market! And also, that on shese shores there are abundance of excellent harbours, where trading vessels are continually putting in, to wait fair winds.

I once saw 30 vessels leave the harbour of Scalpa, or Island-Glas, in Har ries, on a morning in the end of June; a sight so grand I never expected to see in Scotland, far less in the distant Hebrides. They were mostly bound from Norway and the Baltic, to the west of England and Ireland; and had all put in there during the preceding week, to wait a shift of the wind. How acceptable would it have been to the expecting owners of such vessels, could the masters be able to transmit them an account of their safe arrival at such a place, and of their cargo: but as Mr Macleod of Luskintyre used to say, "A man who has any concern with the rest of the world can never have any comfort of his life in the long island, unless he is possessed in a high degree of several of the christian virtues.

It is the best country in the world for teaching a man patience and resignation." Farther, these countries contain many of the best fishing locks in Britain, and it is absolutely necessary, for the encouragement of this useful and lucrative branch of business, that the adventurers have timeous notice of the success of their respective vessels. Add to all this, that the valuable fossils and minerals with which these mountains so eminently abound, are entirely lost to the proprietors and the nation for want of such a communi.

cation; and still, if upon a serious consideration it does not appear ne cessary, time and experience will open the eyes of some other generation to see and adopt that plan, or a similar one. For my part, I think money could scarcely be better expended, and I have mentioned it first as judging it most necessary. I dare not a sert that the making of it would be attended with no difficulty, but I am certain that the same national spirit which surmounted Co. ziaraik, the Black Mount, and that by the General's hut, will not now be daunted by any obstacles which intervene in this. As the cross roads, or those running from east to west in that country, engage at present so much of the public attention, it is needless to say much about them; but there is one which I never heard mentioned, and which I think highly requisite; especially as it is the nearest communication betwixt the eastern and western seas of any in Scotland. It is one to lead from the country of Strath-Glass into Kintail by the straits of Balloch.

It is likewise of considerable con

sequence, that the road from FortWilliam, to Asiraig by Lochiel-head, were finished, it being the nearest road from the so th to Skye, and the long island; and though the ferry from the creek below Borrowdale to the opposite shore of Slate be rather too wide for a constant passage, yet the dreadfnl velocity with which the tide runs through the kyles is here considerably abated, and boats glide over with great safety and owing to the shortness and easiness of this line, (there being very little ascent on either side) most travellers would prefer it, were the road rendered passable in the middle of the coun. try. When so many roads are intended to lead from the east to the sound of Skye, it will follow of course, that one be made from thence Dunvegan on the south-west cor

:

ner of that island; from whence the ferries sail to Harries in Uist. There is at present a kind of a crooked road, but it is not one on which wheeled carriages can pass; but were a turnpike carried thus far, it would soon be joined by several branches leading into the various wings of the country. Nor is Skye unworthy of this attention; it is a valuable highland country. Its shores abounding with excellent fishing lochs and safe harbours; and its mountains and vallies with sheep, and the best of cattle; besides a numerous population, strong, hardy, and zealously loyal; which the wise policy of the Pitts has happily effected, by giving the sons of every respectable family commissions in the army.

(To be continued.)

Anecdotes of the early life of MR PITT,

THE present earl, being intended

for the army, and James-Charles for the sea, Lord Chatham determi ned to educate the second son in the paternal mansion of Hayes. The profession to which he destined him was his own, that of a statesman.— He accordingly entrusted the care of the two sons already mentioned to the care of others, but took William under his own immediate inspection; and the rapid progress of this wonderful boy seemed to cheer his solitude,and illume his declining days.

While his school-exercises were

performed under the immediate auspices of a private tutor *, his noble father conversed with him freely on all subjects, with a view of expan-. ding his mind and maturing his judgement. As he grew up, matters of the utmost importance were start

ed

*The Rev. Mr., afterwards Dr. Wilson, and a canon of Windsor, was his first instructor.