LITMIR.BIZ

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Scotland in the national war, and the town disputed with Perth which was the more ancient and honourable. Its situation at the foot and on the slope of the fine acclivity facing the sun and the Tay, got for it from its Lowland and Highland neighbours its name of “Bonny Dundee” and the “pleasant town.” It has vastly increased its trade and importance since; but it has also increased its amenities; and even the casual eye overlooking it can see, by the handsome spires and towers rising beside the forest of masts and factory stalks that stretch along the shore, and by the open spaces—Albert Square, and the Baxter and Balgay Parks—that the town is mindful of art and air and beauty, as well as of business. The castles—the early building on the Castle Hill, and the later fortalice of the Constables at Dudhope—have disappeared to the foundations. But the fine old square tower of St. Mary’s, in the Nethergate, is still a handsome and conspicuous landmark of Dundee, spite of all the competition of its modern buildings. Although it can hardly be part of the original structure erected by David, Earl of Huntingdon—the hero of the “Talisman”—in gratitude for his escape from manifold perils while serving under Richard Cœur-de-Lion in Palestine, it is a venerable and stately object, and the Dundonians have had this their chief antiquity carefully restored.

      That Dundee has not more remnants left of its early consequence is due to the march of modern improvement, and to the hard knocks it suffered in times of civil war and invasion. After Pinkie, the English troops seized upon the Castle of Broughty Craig—which, like the Tower of St. Mary’s, has been restored, and now guards the entrance to the Firth, with the pleasant backing of marine villa residences and stretches of links and sands much frequented by the good folks of the burgh—and Broughty besieged Dundee, and Dundee Broughty, for two or three years before the intruders were expelled. A hundred years later Montrose and his Irish and Highland kernes swooped suddenly down upon it from the upper valley of the Tay, and plundered and sacked the Covenanting place, the leader looking on from the “Corbie Hill,” while the followers burned, slew, and wasted in the streets below. The townsmen magnanimously forgot this when, a few years later, the “Great Marquis” was brought into it, a captive in the hands of his enemies; and “though Dundee,” says Wishart, “had suffered more by his army than any other within the kingdom, yet were they so far from insulting him, that the whole town testified very great sorrow for his woful condition.” Next year—1651—Dundee had again to endure sack and capture, at the hands of General Monk, when the garrison was put to the sword, the town burned, and, as Carlyle says, “there was once more a grim scene of flames, blood, and rage and despair transacted upon this earth.” Claverhouse is close by the town, and John Graham—that other “evil genius of the Covenant”—was Constable of Dudhope, and took his title from “Bonny Dundee.”

      The “bloody Mackenzie” was another of its sons or neighbours; Camperdown House, the home of the valiant Admiral Duncan, is behind Balgay and the busy suburb of Lochee. But, if it has reared many “men of blood,” Dundee has been still more prolific in historians and poets, reformers and inventors, of whom Boece and Wedderburn, Halyburton and Carmichael, are representative names. Yet longer is the list of its merchant princes, and its munificent patrons of art and benefactors of the town, of whom the Baxter family are types. They have made of Dundee a great and busy centre of maritime commerce, and placed it first among the trading places of the kingdom in the importation and manufacture of jute; and they have not forgotten generous aid in endowing the town with public parks, museums, libraries, educational institutions, and other resources of civilisation, such as few seats of industry of its size can boast.

      

      Dundee has spread over the green slopes and orchard grounds below the Law; but it has only increased the circumference of its fine environment of land and sea. Westward, the view extends over the fertile Carse, and range on range of the Grampians, amid which may be descried Ben Lomond and Schiehallion, and many a Highland peak besides. Behind the Law, the eye rises from the rich valley of the Dichty, flowing by Strathmartine and Claverhouse towards the sea at Monifieth Sands, to the Hill of Auchterhouse, Craig Owl, and other extensions of the Sidlaws, with glimpses of the heads of the loftier hills of Strathmore peeping over their shoulders; and, ridge behind ridge, these uplands subside as they stretch eastward, past many a storied and beautiful scene, towards Arbroath and the sea. Southward, beyond the Firth and the bridge, the rocky northern shores and hilly backbone of Fife are spread out like a map; and behind Newport and Tayport and the waste expanse of Tents Moor shimmer the waters of St. Andrew’s Bay and the Eden Estuary, and rise the grey, weather-beaten towers of St. Rule’s Cathedral and of Cardinal Beaton’s Castle, beside the green links and white sand of St. Andrews.

      John Geddie.

      BROUGHTY FERRY CASTLE.

      BEN AND LOCH LOMOND.

THE FORTH.

       Table of Contents

      Comparative—Poetry, Romance, and History—Loch Ard and Flora McIvor—The “Clachan of Aberfoyle”—Lake of Menteith—The Trossachs and Loch Katrine—Ellen and Helen—Loch Achray—Ben Ledi—The View from Stirling Castle—Stirling Town—Bannockburn—The Ochils and the Devon Valley—Alloa—Clackmannan—Kincardine-on-Forth—Tulliallan Castle—Culross: Abbey and Burgh—The “Standard Stone”—Torryburn—Rosyth Castle—“St. Margaret’s Hope”—Dunfermline: Tower, Palace, and Abbey—The New Forth Bridge—Inch Garvie and its Castle—Inverkeithing Bay—Donibristle House—Aberdour—Inchcolm, Cramond, Inchkeith, and May Islands—The Bass Rock—Kirkcaldy Bay—Edinburgh—Leith—Seton—Aberlady—Round to North Berwick—Tantallon Castle.

      Other Scottish streams may dispute with the Forth the prize of beauty, and excel it in length of course and in wealth of commerce. There is none that can contend with it for the palm of historic interest. Nature herself has marked out its valley as the scene of the strife and of the reconciliation of races and creeds. Half the important events in Scottish annals have taken place on or near the banks of the river, and of the Firth—around Doune, and Stirling, and Edinburgh, and Dunfermline; under the shadow of the Campsie and the Ochil Hills; along the margins of the Teith and Allan, Devon and Esk; by the folds of the Forth, or by the shores of Fife and the Lothians. Its course forms no inapt emblem and epitome of the fortunes of Scotland and of the Scottish nation. Drawn from the strength of the hills, and cradled amid scenes of wild and solitary beauty, its deep, dark, winding waters flow through the “Debatable Land” of Roman and Caledonian, of Pict and Scot, of Saxon and Gael. The fords and bridges which Highlander and Lowlander, Whig and Jacobite, have crossed so often on raid or for reprisal, have become bonds of union. The fertile carse-lands wave with the richer harvests for the blood shed in the battles of national independence, and in many a feud now ended and forgotten. The Forth, that “bridled the wild Highlandman,” has become the symbol of peace and the highway of intercourse between South and North.

      Poetry and Romance, as well as History, have made the Forth their favourite haunt. The genius of Scottish Romance, or of Scottish History, could nowhere find a prouder seat than Ben Lomond. At its feet are the waters of Loch Lomond, losing themselves to the north among the enclosing folds of the hills, and broadening out southwards to embrace their beautiful islands; while beyond, like a map, lie the mountains of the West, from Skye to Kintyre, touched here and there with gleams of loch and sea, and with blurs of smoke from factory stalk or steamer. From the other flank of the mountain issues the infant Forth. Ben Lomond presides over all its devious wanderings, from the source to the sea. It looks directly down upon “Rob Roy’s country;” and close at hand, and within the basin of the Forth, are Loch Katrine and the Trossachs. The towers of Stirling, and even the “reek” of Edinburgh, may be descried on a clear day. Following the broad valley of the Forth, the eye can take in the sites

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