AND THEIR INHABITANTS. 167 



formed in four hours. Sixteen persons accompanied 

 the Queen. As it was Sunday evening, the general 

 holiday of high and low, an unusual number of 

 people assembled to see the Scotch boat come in. 

 Rude as this vessel was, she excited lively curiosity, 

 for it was instantly perceived that her passengers 

 were neither fisher folk, colliers, nor Kirkcudbright 

 traders. It needed not regal ornaments or robes 

 of purple to proclaim Mary's rank, exhausted with 

 grief and fatigue though she had been for the 

 last three nights, and wearing the travel-soiled gar- 

 ments of white silk in which she had fled from the 

 lost battle of Langside. The moment she stepped on 

 shore she was recognized as the fugitive Queen of 

 Scotland. 



The river Dee is one of the most interesting streams 

 of the north-west of England and Wales. Its source 

 is Bala Lake, Merionethshire. It flows through the 

 beautiful vale of Llangollen and Wynnstay, and then 

 running north separates Denbigh from Flintshire and 

 Cheshire, and runs into the Irish Sea ; it is, therefore, 

 more a Welsh than an English river. 



A good deal of fine fish comes from this river, 

 though not so celebrated in this way as its Scotch 

 namesake. Many traps, weirs, and obstacles of 

 various kinds oppose the passage, up and down, of 

 the noble salmon, yet it has been able to reach the 

 upper waters in its yearly progress from the sea, and 

 still is tolerably abundant, notwithstanding poachers 

 and more systematic commercial enemies. Fine 

 trout and other mountain-stream fish are found in 

 this river. But in early times the Dee was most 



