IN THE HIGHLANDS OF PERTHSHIRE. 421 
alongshore on both sides of the Forth, from its mouth, where 
it is many miles wide, to the point where its banks are united 
by a bridge, not larger than the bridge of Kingston. Our object 
is not pictorial nor antiquarian, or 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 in- 
dustry ; 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, on the southern shore, is 
one of the few fortresses which Scotland jealously stipulated, at 
the Union, were to be preserved as garrisoned places. Cambus 
Kenneth 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 show; but to 
make up for these she has castles, fortalices, towers, and spences 
innumerable, and of all sorts and sizes, from the princely edifices 
of Taymouth, Dunrobin, etc., down to the less extensive but 
not less characteristic baronial erections of Castle Fyvie, Castle 
Fraser, and the Castle of Cluny. The genuine Scottish castles 
do not exist on the shores of the Forth, nor on those of the Tay 
either. Strathdon, the Straths of Dee, Ury, Ythan, Ugie, etc., 
in the Garioch and Buchan districts of the north and east of 
Scotland, contain the most renowned castles of the Middle Ages; 
but modern refinements and the necessities of a more civilized 
age have, even in these, made innovations that impair their an- 
cient characters. 
But as we did not go to Scotland to look for a castle, as our 
great lexicographer went to look for a tree, we did not pay our 
respects to many of the baronial residences that lay in our way. 
To make amends for this the grand features of Scotland, her 
hills and streams, came in for a full share of our notice and ad- 
miration. The first grand object, in sailing up the Forth, that 
attracts the notice of the lover of nature, is the Ochil Hills on 
