LITMIR.BIZ

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on one side above old Ballenbriech Castle and the Fife shores, and on the other commanding the “Howe o’ Fife” and the Loch of Lindores. Beside the venerable ruins of Lindores Abbey, close to Newburgh and the Firth, are buried the murdered “heir of Scotland,” David, Duke of Rothesay, and James of Douglas—the “grey monk of Lindores”—the last of the ambitious race of the Black Douglases. In the same vicinity, in a glen or pass of the Ochils, stood another grim memorial of feudal or pre-feudal times, “Cross Macduff,” now represented only by its pedestal, where the taker of life, if he could “count kin,” within nine degrees, with the Thane of Fife, the head of Clan Macduff, could find refuge, and proffer the “blood-penny” in atonement.

      Over against Moredun are the crests of the Lomonds and the green, smooth, wavy lines of the Ochils; and through Glenfarg to its foot comes the new main line of railway to the North by the Forth Bridge. Right opposite, behind Pitkeathly Wells, Kilgraston, the old kirk and “rocking stone” of Dron, and the ruins of Balmanno Castle, are the “Wicks of Baiglie,” whence Scott asserted that the Romans and he could descry the site of Perth. But the eye is carried irresistibly westward along the skirts of the hills and the broad and teeming valley below, towards the Highland mountains that surround the sources of the Earn. Near at hand are Forteviot and its Holyhill—a Scoto-Pictish capital before Perth; Dunning and other villages and hamlets lying along the hill-foots, proud to this day of the memories of the martyrs for “Crown and Covenant,” their sufferings at the hands of Montrose and Mar, and the former prosperity of their weaving crafts; and standing on rich flats by the waterside, or in picturesque glens running up into the Ochils, many a mansion and castle of the fighting and grasping Jacobite lairds of Strathearn, ill neighbours of yore to the Whiggish villagers. Over against the “Birks o’ Invermay” lies Dupplin Castle (now the seat of Lord Kinnoull), with its loch, its grand woods, and the site of its battlefield, so disastrous to the Scots; and opposite Lord Rollo’s park of Duncrub is Gask, still a home of the Oliphants, though the “Auld House” has disappeared. Further west, the Ruthven water comes down through Gleneagles and the lovely wooded “Den” of Kincardine, past the old castle and the single long street of Auchterarder, famous in ecclesiastical history. The Machany flows by Culdees and Strathallan Castles, and not far from Tullibardine, cradle of the noble House of Athole, and burying-place of the great race of Montrose. At Innerpeffray, where the old line of Roman roads and stations crossed the Earn, comes in the Pow, flowing by the ruins of Inchaffray Abbey and the woods of Balgowan and Abercairney; and further on, around Crieff, and thence upwards by Comrie and St. Fillan’s, to Loch Earn, lies one of the most glorious districts, not alone of Earnside, but of Scotland. Drummond and Monzie Castles, Ochtertyre and Dunira, Lawers and Aberuchil, are among its grandly wooded demesnes; Glenturret, Glen Lednoch, and Glen Artney contribute each their charms of crag and waterfall, bosky dell and lone hillside, and there are innumerable remains of former days in the form of standing or ruined chapel and castle, and the sites of ancient feud and battle. Little of all this can, of course, be descried from the top of Moncrieffe Hill; but Ben Chonzie, and the Braes of Doune, and the Forest of Glen Artney, and behind them the shapely head of Ben Voirlich and other mountains that mirror themselves in Loch Earn or guard Glen Ogle and Lochearnhead, are full in view.

      The abrupt front of Kinnoull Hill, on the other hand, commands more directly the lower course of the Tay and its estuary, widening out between the level expanse of the Carse of Gowrie, thickly sprinkled with farms and mansions, and the opposing shores of Fife, onward to where it is closed by the smoke of Dundee and the line of the Tay Bridge. From the pathway below the tower crowning the hill, one looks down—one almost fancies he might leap down—upon the woods and sward surrounding Kinfauns Castle, the residence of the family of Gray. Visible, too, from Kinnoull, or sheltering under the folds of the “Braes o’ the Carse,” which rise from the flat champaign to the heights of the Sidlaws, are innumerable sites and scenes, equally rich in beauty and in memories of days when Gowrie was busier making history than in raising grain. Among them are St. Madoes’ Church and its sculptured Runic stones; Errol and Megginch, ancient heritages of the Hays; Kilspindie, where Wallace spent his schooldays, when he “in Gowrie dwelt, and had gude living there,” and the seat, later, of Archibald of Douglas—“Auld Graysteel;” Fingask, the home of the stout old Jacobite family of Murray Thriepland and of the “Lass o’ Gowrie” of Scottish song; Kinnaird and Rossie Priory, the earlier and later possessions of the noble House of Kinnaird, champions in these parts, for generations, of the cause of Reform.

      DUNDEE, FROM BROUGHTY FERRY.

      From Rossie Hill, or from the battlements of the fine old baronial tower of Castle Huntly, a nearer view can be had of the beautiful cultivated Carse and its surroundings of firth and hills; or from near the remains of the ancient Church of Invergowrie and the boundary line of the shires of Perth and Stirling you can look across the widest part of the great tidal stream—three miles of shining water or sandbank—to another famous old ivy-clad ruin, Balmerino Abbey, on the opposite and bolder shore of Fife. But as Kinnoull commands the grandest view of the upper part of the Firth of Tay, so Balgay Hill and Dundee Law are the stations to take up for a survey of its lower reaches and its meeting with the North Sea. Round the bases of these eminences the northern coast of the estuary curves outward, leaving a comparatively narrow platform on which, for a space of three miles or more, are grouped the forest of chimneys, spires, and masts of the city and harbour of Dundee. The passage between the sea front of esplanade and docks, and Newport and the line of handsome villas surmounting the rocky bank on the other side, is reduced to less than two miles; and still bending and narrowing, as the Fife shore, in turn, approaches, as if to meet Angus and seal the mouth of the Tay, the waters of the Firth measure only a mile across from Broughty Castle to Ferryport-on-Craig, where, skirted on either hand by broad stretches of sand and “links,” they finally open, trumpet-shaped, to meet the German Ocean. Directly under the Law, from Magdalen Point to St. Fort, where begin the narrows and the busier part of Dundee, the line of arches of the new Tay Bridge spans the Firth. The width from bank to bank is 3,440 yards—a little under two miles—including the curve which the long double file of piers makes in approaching the Dundee side. Slight as the structure looks, when first seen from the Law or the river, and compared with the wide expanse of water over which it is carried, it conveys, on more attentive view, an impression of security as well as gracefulness; it is not only a triumph of engineering skill, but a beautiful object in a striking and noble picture.

      DUNDEE.

      Far other are the impressions produced by the appearance, above the water level, and running for part of the way alongside its successor, of the foundations of the first Tay Bridge. This ill-fated undertaking had only been eighteen months open for traffic, when, on a wild night at the close of 1879, the whole of the central portion collapsed and fell into the raging Firth, carrying along with it a train, with its freight of seventy or eighty passengers, which was crossing at the time. Not a soul survived to tell the circumstances of the catastrophe—the most dramatic and one of the most disastrous in the annals of railway accidents in this country. But subsequent inquiry left no doubt that, in the original scheme of the structure, sufficient allowance had not been made for the tremendous pressure put upon it by the currents of air scouring through this funnel of the Firth; and that much of the work, both in the brick foundations and steel superstructure, had been “scamped” and left without proper inspection, so that the first occasion of maximum strain—a passing train, while a tempest was at its height—brought the inevitable result.

      Dundonians love to survey their city and its surroundings from the “Law.” The spectacle is one they may well be proud of. Marvellous has been the change here since Dundee consisted of only four straggling streets, meeting at the central “place” of the “Market Gait,” and a congeries of narrow lanes running from these down to the harbour, consisting, as the local historian tells us, of rude jetties added to the natural haven opening between the headlands of the Chapel Craig and the Castle Rock. Even then, however—four centuries ago and more—it had an interesting history; even then the energy of its burgesses and its favourable position at the mouth of the Tay enabled it to carry

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