FROM ABERDEEN To BANFF.

FROM Aberdeen, where I spent a week very pleasantly and experienced much civility and hospitality, as every stranger who is introduced to any respectable person in the place does, I crossed the Don, by a very fine bridge of one large arch, on my way to Peterhead.

The people in England, nay, even in the south of Scotland, have scarcely any conception of the astonishing improvements of late made in the roads, &c. &c. all around this thriving and really polished capital of the north of Scotland. The roads on the north side of Aberdeen are made in different directions, in some places to the extent of thirty miles, as well as on the south side of it, at the expense of, I believe, five shillings per yard. They are mettled with hard stones, broken down to about the bigness of hens eggs, nine inches deep, a sufficient breadth, and then covered with gravel. And what serves to point out the growing prosperity and enterprizing spirit of the gentlemen in this part of the country, is, that there is a canal almost parallel to one of the great lines of roads, already dug as far as the burgh of Inverary, by which means goods may be carried backward and forward to and from Aberdeen, near twenty miles either by land or water. The gentlemen and land proprietors of each parish advance money, in a certain proportion, to make

the road; and what they do not advance is borrowed on interest, which is paid by a toll levied at certain places.

Upon crossing the Ythan, a deep and dead river, stealing slowly through a good soil and a well-culticountry, I fell in with a fellow-traveller on horseback, who accompanied me for some miles, and with whom I had a great deal of conversation. He told me of a late lord, who had kept a number of concubines, of whom fresh supplies were sent every year from London; and of a number of noblemen's and gentlemen's seats, and great improvements in the country watered by the Ythan. I asked him if there were any salmon in the Ythan. "O yes," said he, "but one of the proprietors on our side of the river was finely taken in about the salmon. About fifty years ago, as there was a proprietor on each side of the water, they held the passage boat and the fishing in common between them, The rent of each was then about twelve pounds a year." One of the proprietors, more shrewd than the other, and beginning to observe the value of the fisheries, said to the other, "As we do not always agree about the rent of the boat and the fishing, if you will give me the whole power of letting the fishing, I will allow you to let the boat, in all time to come, to whom and at what you please." The agreement was made, and drawn up on this condition; and the salmon fishing brings in now about five or six hundred a year, while the boat rent does not greatly exceed the old twelve pounds.

There is a fine view of the sea and sea-coast alt

the way from Aberdeen to Peterhead. In my way

thither I went to see Slane's Castle, and the famous Bullers of Buchan, in the vicinity of that noble and romantic mansion. Slane's Castle, the seat of the earl of Errol, is situated upon a peninsulated rock, almost perpendicular from the sea. In a storm, the waves actually dash upon its walls, and the spray is wafted by the winds over the tops of the house and offices into the gardens and adjacent fields. The present mansion is a very old and spacious edifice, forming a quadrangle in the middle. The antient castle is in ruins, having been demolished by king James VI. on the earl of Huntley's rebellion in 1594. For several miles to the north of Slane's Castle the sea-coast is formed by a border of high rocks indented with immense chasms, and here and there spacious caves. Near the house of Slanes are some rocks of a very striking appearance, on which thousands of birds build their nests. About two miles to the north, near the fishing village of Bowness, are the Bullers. These are great hollows in a rock projecting into the sea; through which rock, open at the top, you may see the roads, lying in a bason below, which forms, in bad weather, a good harbour. They are divided from the sea by a narrow and high rock, peforated by three grand archways, through which the water pours into the awful cavern an hundred yards in diameter, foaming, and in appearance boiling up with fury. The scenery around, of rock, water, sea-fowl, &c. is wildly grand.

I went also to see the dropping cove, or cave of Slanes. You enter this cave by a narrow mouth, when it grows wider and wider as you advance. The light of the candles carried with us was reflected

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