OLD CUMNOCK, July 19. Passing out of the town this morning, we stopped at the prettiest little photographic establishment we had ever seen, and the artist succeeded in taking excellent views of the coach and party, as the reader may see by a glance at the frontispiece, where the original negative is reproduced by the artotype process. It was done in an instant; we were taken ere we were aware. A great thing, that instantaneous photography; one has not time to look his very worst, as sitters usually contrive to do-ladies especially. It is so hard to be artificial and yet look pretty. 'Right, Perry!" and off we drove through the crowd for Douglas. The General Manager soon confided to me that, for the first time, he was dubious about our resting-place for the night. A telegram had been received by him from the landlord at Douglas just before starting, stating that the inn was full to overflowing with officers of the volunteer regiment encamped there, and that it was impossible for him to provide for our party. What was to be done? It was decided to inform that important personage, mine host, that we were moving upon him, and that if he gave no quarters we should give none either. He must billet us somewhere; if not, then "A night in greenwoood spent Were but to-morrow's merriment." But we felt quite sure that the town of Douglas would, in council assembled, extend a warm welcome to the Americans, and see us safely housed, even if there were not a hotel in the place. So on we went. While passing through Lugar, a pretty young miss ran out of the telegraph office, and holding up both hands, called : "Stop! It's no aff yet! it's no aff yet!" A message was coming for the coaching party. It proved to be from our Douglas landlord, saying, All right! he would do the best he could for us. When the party was informed how much we had been trusting in Providence for the past few hours, such was their enthusiasm that some disappointment was expressed at the reassuring character of the telegram. Not to know where we were going to be all night-may be to have to lie in and on the coachwould have been such fun! But "Behind yon hill where Lugar flows," sung by Eliza, sounded none the less sweet when we knew we were not likely to have to camp out upon its pretty banks. It is essential for successful, happy coaching with ladies that every comfort should be provided. I am satisfied it would never do to risk the weaker sex coaching in any other land. The extreme comfort of everything here alone keeps them well and able to stand the gipsy life. We travelled most of the day among the ore lands and blast furnaces of the Scotch pig-iron kings, the Bairds. To reach Edinburgh we had to drive diagonally eastward across the country, for we had gone to the westward that Dumfries and the Land of Burns might not be missed. This route took us through less frequented localities, off the main lines of travel, but our experience justified us in feeling that this had proved a great advantage, for we saw more of Scotland than we should have done otherwise. Our luncheon to-day was a novel one in some respects. No inn was to be reached upon the moors, and feed for the horses had to be taken with us from Cumnock; but we found the prettiest little wimpling burn, across which a passage was made by throwing in big stones, for the shady dell was upon the far side. The horses were unhitched and allowed to nibble the wayside grass beside our big coach, which loomed up on the moor as if it were double its true size. The thistle and the harebell begin to deck our grassy tables at noon, and fine fields of peas and beans scent the air. All is Scotch; and oh, that bracing breeze, which cools deliciously the sun's bright rays, confirms us in the opinion that no weather is like Scotch weather, when it is good; when it is not I have no doubt the same opinion is equally correct, but we have no means of judging. Scotland smiles upon her guests, and we love her with true devotion in return. "What do you think of Scotland noo?" came often to-day; but words cannot express what we do think of her. In the language of one of our young ladies, "She is just lovely!" The question came up to-day at luncheon, would one ever tire of this gipsy life? and it was unanimously voted never! At least no one could venture to name a time when he would be ready to return to the prosy routine of ordinary existence while blessed with such weather and such company. Indeed, this nomadic life must be the hardest of all to exchange for city life. It is so diametrically opposed to it in every phase. "If I were not the independent gentleman I am," says Lamb, "I should choose to be a beggar." "Chapsey me a gipsy," gentle Elia, you could not have known of that life, or perhaps you considered it and the beggar's life identical. But, mark you, there is a difference which is much more than a distinction. A gipsy cannot beg, but he or she tells fortunes, tinkers a little, and deals in horses. Even if he steals a little now and then, I take it he is still within the lines of the profession; while your beggar who does anything in the way of work, or who steals, is no true man. His licence is for begging only. The gipsy obviously has the wider range, and I say again, therefore, "Chapsey me a gipsy," gentle Elia. Davie and I walked over to the railway line after luncheon to have a talk with the surfacemen we saw at work. They were strong, stalwart men, and possessed of that shrewd, solid sense which is invariably found in Scotch workmen. Their pay seemed very small to us; the foreman got only twenty shillings per week ($5), while the ordinary surfacemen got fourteen shillings ($3.50). Although this was only a single-track branch line, it was almost as well laid as the Pennsylvania Railroad. None of the men had ever been in America, but several had relatives there who were doing well, and they looked forward to trying the new land some day. We reached pretty Douglas in the evening, and sounded our horn longer than usual to apprise mine host that the host was upon him. We were greatly pleased to see him and his good wife standing in the door of the inn with pleasant, smiling faces to greet us. They had arranged everything for our comfort. Many thanks to those gentlemanly officers who had so kindly given up their rooms to accommodate their American cousins. Quarters for the gentlemen had been found in the village, and Joe and Perry and the horses were all well taken care of. Thus we successfully passed through the only occasion where there seemed to be the slightest difficulty about our resting-place for the night. Douglas, the ancient seat of that family so noted in Scotland's history, is really worth a visit. Home Castle, their residence, is a commanding pile seen for many miles up the valley as we approach the town. Our visit to it was greatly enjoyed, we had such a pretty walk in the evening, and a rest on the slope of the hill overlooking the castle. We lay there in the grass and enjoyed the quiet Scotch gloaming which was gathering round us, and so silently, so slowly, shutting in the scene. The castle upon the left below us, the Douglas water so placidly gliding through the valley at our feet, the old church where lay mouldering generations of the Douglases, and the dark woods. beyond, formed a picture which kept us long upon the hill. In their day, what bustling men were these doughty Douglases —full of sturt and strife-the very ideal representatives of the warrior bold, who made their way and held their own by the strength of their good right arms. "A steede, a steede of matchless speede, A sword of metal keene, All else to noble minds is dross, All else on earth is meane; And O the thundering press of knights, Might serve to call a saint from heaven Or rouse a fiend from helle." This was their ideal—the very reverse, thank God, of the ideal of to-day-but note how peacefully they lie now in the little antiquated church in this obscure valley. What shadows we are! What shadows we pursue! This vein once started in the Scotch gloaming upon the hills, where the colouring of the scene is so sombre as to be not only seen but felt, must be indulged in sparingly, or some of the Charioteers might soon have to record a new experience—a fit of the blues. But this was prevented by comparing the advance made by the race upon this question of war within the past century. The "profession of arms " is very soon to be rated as it deserves. The apology for it will be the same as for any other of the butchering trades -it is necessary. Granted for the present-but what of the nature which selects such a profession! The inscriptions upon the tombs of the Douglases recalled other epitaphs; some one said of all the inscriptions yet seen, he thought that upon the tomb of the Duke of Devonshire gave us the best lesson. It runs thus : "Who lyeth heare? Ye gude Yearle of Devenshere→ What he kept is lost, What he gave that he hath." We were on the verge of moralizing. Some one scenting the danger, said he thought an equally suggestive epitaph headed one of the chapters of "David Elginbrod": "Here lies David Elginbrod, Hae mercy on his soul, oh God! Yes, there is food for thought here too. David must have been a queer one. The sky grew darker, and the far-off woods faded into a cloud upon the horizon; the party rose, and in so doing regained their usual hilarity-forgot all about tombs and were off for a run hand-in-hand down the gentle slope to the valley, shouting and laughing in great glee-and so on over the pretty bridge to their delightful inn. DOUGLAS, July 20. Edinburgh, Scotia's darling seat, only forty-four miles distant. OFF TO EDINBURGH. 153 All aboard, this pretty morning, for Edinburgh! "Right, Perry!" and off we went quite early through Douglas, for the capital. Our path was through woods for several miles, and we listened to the birds and saw and heard many of the incidents of morn so prettily described by Beattie : "The wild brook babbling down the mountain-side, The lowing herd; the sheep-fold's simple bell; The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove." It was to be a long day's drive, but an easy one; only one hill, and then a gradual descent all the way to Edinburgh. So it might have been by the other road, but the mile-stones which told us so many miles to Edinburgh should also have said: Take the new road; this is the old one, "over the hills and far away." But they did not, and we could not be wrong, for this was a way if not the way, to "Auld Reekie." After all, it was one of the richest of our experiences, as we look back upon it now. So many hills to walk up and so many to walk down; so many moors with not a house to be seen, nothing but sheep around us and the lights and shadows of a Scotch sky overhead. But it was grand, and recalled some of Black's wonderful pen pictures. And then we enjoyed the heather which we found in its beauty, though scarcely yet tinted with its richest glow of colour. This was our introduction to it. The heathery moor was new to most of the party, and many were the exclamations produced by its beauty. There's "meat and drink" to a Scotchman in the scent of the heather. About luncheon time we began to look longingly for the expected inn, but there was no habitation to be seen, and we became suspicious that, notwithstanding the mile-stones, which stood up and told us the lie which was half the truth (ever the blacker lie), we were not upon the right road to Edinburgh. At this juncture we met a shepherd with his collies, and learnt from him that we were still twelve miles from an inn. It was a cool, breezy day; the air had the "nip" in it which Maggie missed so in England, and we were famishing. There was nothing else to do but to stop where we were, at the pretty burn, and tarry there for entertainment for man and beast. As proof of our temperance, please note that the flasks filled with sherry, whisky, and brandy, at Brighton, I believe, as reserve forces for emergencies, still had plenty in them when called for to-day; and rarely has a glass of spirits done greater good, the ladies as well as we of the stronger sex, feeling that a glass was necessary to keep off a chill. We were "o'er the |