CITY

TRAVELS IN SCOTLAND.

FROM EDINBURGH TO STIRLING.

HAVING procured letters of recommendation to some of the best informed men in the places I meant to visit, I left Edinburgh, the 15th of April, 1803, on a Tour to the North.

As most of the travellers who have written their remarks, have chosen summer or harvest for their journey, I also wished to see the aspect of the country when the mountains were beginning to lay aside their winter garb. Therefore, bidding adieu to my friends in the capital, I prepared for my jour

ney.

As there never was and never will be any thriving city or village at a distance from water carriage, and, as every large city or town always has been and always will be situated either on the sea-coast or the banks of some navigable river, I resolved to travel the whole of the sea-coast of Scotland, as also the banks of her most eminent rivers; and, while I thus amused myself, to compare the local improvements, the notions, customs, and follies of the people, with what they are represented to have been in former times; with those existing at present in a sister kingdom; and to

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make, if I could, from the comparisons that might occur, some observations of a practical and useful

nature.

When I came to the Queen's Ferry, so called because Margaret, Malcolm III's Queen, used frequently to pass there in her way to and from Dumfermline, where she resided, I saw one of the passage boats labouring much, and with difficulty turned by the boatman. The ships of the antients, particularly large ones (and Diodorus. Siculus tells us that some of them were so large as to contain from three to four thousand men) had always two helms, or rudders; one at the stem or prow, and another at the stern; and sometimes one at each side, as we sce in large barges on the Thames at this day. Now as men in a boat with an oar at each end, acting in different directions, produce the same effect, and assist one another in turning her, might not a helm, or rudder at the stem as well as the stern of boats and other vessels, to be shipped and unshipped at pleasure, upon many occasions, be useful?

At Hopetoun House, the seat of the Earl of Hope toun, I was much pleased with its beauty and elegance; its delightful situation, commanding an extensive view of the Frith of Forth, which once bounded the Roman Empire, and protected the Saxons from the incursions of the Scots; and the correctness and elegance of taste displayed in the extensive pleasure grounds around this splendid

mansion.

The charter to this extensive estate is, I understand, a small slip of parchment, not bigger than

one's fingers, granting a right, as it is expressed, not only to the grounds, specifying their extent, but also to all the fowls, &c. &c. on it, or that fly over it, as high as heaven; and every thing on or below the surface, as low as hell.

I went next to view the Palace at Linlithgow, where Mary Queen of Scots was born. The room is but small, seemingly not much above 12 feet square, and not unlike that in the Castle of Edinburgh, where James VI. was born. However, the ruins of this antient palace serve to shew not only its great antiquity, but also that it has been extensive, and calculated to withstand a vigorous attack.

It is not difficult to account for some of the notions of our forefathers: but what could induce them to make the water, which is excellent here, to appear at the wells as spouting from the mouths of angels, is more than I can comprehend. To paint angels with wings is not unnatural; because they are the messengers of heaven, and are conceived as flying from heaven to earth, and earth to heaven, in obedience to the command of the Great Governor of all. But to represent them at the wells as spouting water from their mouths, certainly appears unnatural, I had almost said disgusting; as it seems to suggest the idea of their being drunkards, with the liquor running from their over-charged stomachs.

Carron Work, which is but a few miles from Linlithgow, I had seen before; but as I had not seen the boring of cannons, I went to see it again. The gentlemen here, I understand, a few years before, thought that nobody knew the boring of cannon but themselves. However, they were soon undeceived;

for, at Seringapatam and among the Gentoos, whom Europeans are led to think among the most ignorant of civilized people in the world, they found the boring of cannon of all kinds not only understood, but every day openly practised; that art having been carried thither by our good friends the French. And here I cannot help expressing my surprize, that, amidst the vast variety of useful and tremendous implements, that are made here, I found scarcely any iron windows. In Scotland, as the houses are generally built of stone, and require three or four sets of new windows before the walls tumble down, would it not be economical, as well as elegant, to have windows of all sorts of cast-iron? They could be painted any colour. The frames with care might last for ages, and the weight of the sashes, or moving parts, could be counter-balanced by the weights attached to them.

Horace says, that the man's breast must have been made of oak, who first ventured to sea in a ship; but what would he have said had he foreseen the day was approaching when men would venture to sea in ships of iron! We have now iron ships, iron bridges, iron roads, iron stairs, iron fences, and iron bedsteads. In short, if improvements go on here, as they have done; and the gentlemen connected with Carron Work exert their reasoning faculties a little fonger, we may expect to see not only iron furniture of all kinds, but houses of iron, erected with as little trouble, and in as short a time as our forefathers built their huts, or the Tartars pitch their tents.

With regard to Grangemouth, a thriving village. on the banks of the Forth, at the end of the canal