204 By Stream and Sea. 



to a goodly altitude, and then suddenly sloping down into 

 the sea. This is the famous Mull of Cantyre that, running 

 a clear forty miles away from the mainland, might by 

 running only thirteen miles farther have formed a bridge 

 between Antrim and Argyllshire. 



Midway in the Channel we are on the highway of the 

 Scotch and American packets, and there is coming up at full 

 speed a stately vessel that to-morrow will be taking on board 

 her last passengers at Londonderry, and then, heigh-ho ! 

 for the broad Atlantic. Like a huge dome thrust out of the 

 sea 1 at a venture stands Ailsa Crag, clearly visible to us 

 though six miles distant. This rocky island is a striking 

 feature from both sea and land, and must be reverenced, if 

 for nothing else, because it has given a name to a peer of 

 the realm. 



Loch Ryan, which during the last five minutes has ex- 

 changed its soothing music for a decidedly brawling tone, 

 may now conspire no more. Ireland by this time is blotted 

 out of sight. And how better could I conciliate this 

 Scottish stream, whose clannishness is so worthy of itself, 

 than by pointing to the hilly coast which stretches yonder 

 into northerly dimness? We were not so ignorant, maybe, 

 we smokers on the bridge, as not to know that yonder was 

 the land of Burns. Even the river Cree will admit that 

 he sang as sweet a song as any of its own splashing brooks 

 or murmurous falls. The banks and braes of bonnie Doon 

 were not very far from us as the crow flies, and we could 

 scan it, at any rate by the eye of faith, with some degree 

 of certainty too, for we had an American lady in the saloon, 

 whose bulky European guide-book was stuffed with flowers 

 and ferns culled from the scenes trodden by the Ayrshire 

 Ploughman, and who held her pilgrimage to the cottage, 

 monument, and " Alloway's auld haunted Kirk," as of the 



