856 MISCELLANEOUS LETTEKS, 1886-1897 



of the N.W. Highlands, and I have had three days of an 

 abominable cold. Nevertheless it is all very enjoyable, 

 for our host and hostess are all hospitality and with horses 

 and carriages enable us to see the country with ease and 

 more than comfort. 



I am very much interested in the changes I see around 

 me pervading everything : miles of villages along the coast 

 where all was uninhabited in my young days ; the Clyde 

 cumbered with huge steam vessels and clouds of smoke ; 

 Kailways for miles where I had to trudge ; Glasgow a 

 splendid city in contrast to its former squalor, and the 

 Clyde for miles below it, when I left nothing but grass 

 and trees, now occupied by literally hundreds of building 

 yards, all full of iron steam-ships building, many of stupend- 

 ous size. The great strike of ship-craftsmen on the Thames 

 some 20 years ago drove all the ship building there to the 

 already prosperous Clyde, where the proximity to coal and 

 iron mines furthered the industry marvellously. 



But what strikes me most ib the change in the Kirk ; 

 the minister last Sunday read his sermon ! a thing that 

 would have been the means of hooting him from the pulpit 

 50 years ago. The hideous, barn-like Kirk itself, now a 

 neat and not unadorned building ; the long earnest prayers 

 are cut short, and the sermon reduced to half an hour 

 the time made up with a double allowance of Psalms, Hymns, 

 and the old sung Scotch ' Paraphrases ' ; the congregation 

 all with shoes and stockings ! and no dogs admitted ! Gaelic 

 is a thing of the past. 



Of curious coincidences I may mention two : My host's 

 bailiff at Highams (his place near The Camp) tells him that 

 my father bought the little place he had near this (Invereck) 

 from his family, who still have the papers. Now my host 

 picked up this man in London ! 



The other is, that coming down here in the steamer 

 from Glasgow, I fell into conversation with a Glasgow 

 gentleman, who in course of conversation told me that he 

 had a summer residence at Helensburgh, and that the place 

 was formerly held by Dr. Hooker, who planted it. I asked 

 him the name of it, and he said Burnside at Helensburgh, 

 which is a place which my father rented for several years 

 before he had Invereck and did lay out ! Of course he had 



