HIGHLANDS OF PERTHSHIRE. 5 



tion-master showed us some of his botanical rarities, which were 

 no rarities to us. We exhibited some of our captures from Haw- 

 thornden woods, but found that he knew less about them than 

 we did previously to our leaving London. Our knowledge of 

 the vegetation of Mid- Lothian was far ahead of his, though we 

 had botanized there only a single day and he had lived there all 

 his days. There is this to be said in his behalf, that his days 

 have been but few and ours have been many. And we are too 

 often met by the conceited cui bono race of men, who sneer at 

 our humble and amiable pursuits, not to feel gratified when a 

 young man in the responsible situation of a station-master does 

 not disdain to look into the collecting-box of an amateur. The 

 arrival of the train which was to convey us back to the city, in- 

 terrupted our agreeable tete-a-tete, and hindered our seeing the 

 herbarium as well as getting a sly peep into the knowledge-box 

 of our recently acquired and obliging friend. 



Between Edinburgh and Stirling there is a steam-boat which 

 plies twice a day in summer on the upper part of the Frith. 

 By this means of transit the passenger enjoys the beautiful views 

 alongshore on both sides of the Forth, from its mouth, where it 

 is maoy miles wide, to the point where its banks are united by a 

 bridge, not larger than the bridge of Kingston-on-Thames. Our 

 object is not pictorial nor antiquarian ; if it were, the luxuriant 

 woods which fringe both sides of the estuary would be noticed, 

 with the grand mansions, seats, and residences of Scotland's titled 

 and untitled aristocracy, which peep out every now and then from 

 the bosoms of the dense masses of trees, beautiful as a leafy and 

 moist June can make and keep them. Several unostentatious little 

 towns dot the shores of the Frith. These are the hives of busy 

 industry; and the most notable are the North and South Queens- 

 ferry, Charleston, Culross, Borrowstowness (pronounced Bo'ness), 

 Kincardine, Alloa, celebrated all over Scotland for its ales, and 

 Carron, still more celebrated all over the world for its grates, 

 hot-air stoves, and many things of a less harmless nature than 

 cooking utensils. Blackness Castle, 011 the southern shore, is 

 one of the few fortresses which Scotland jealously stipulated, at 

 the Union, to be preserved as garrisoned places. Cambus Ken- 

 neth Abbey, or rather a part of it, still stands as a monument of 

 the religious grandeur of Scotland, now no more. 



Scotland has but few remnants of ecclesiastical edifices to 



