Wherever my feet have trodden, wherever
my eyes have looked, whatever my pen has
described, wherever the light of my
imagination has fallen upon the land or sea, all
are spots that are dear to my countrymen,
and shall be dear to them for ever."

Among the first of these memorable places
is Fast Castle, frowning over the sea, with
the distant range of the Lammermoor Hills
in the background. This is the Wolf's Crag,
of the painful but fascinating romance, the
Bride of Lammermoor. Sir Walter never
wholly admitted the identity of Fast Castle
and Wolf's Crag, and declared that he had
never seen that castle except from the sea,
adding, "but fortalices of this description
are found occupying, like osprey's nests,
projecting rocks and promontories in many
parts of the eastern coast of Scotland, and
the position of Fast Castle seems certainly
to resemble that of Wolf's Crag as much as
any other, while its vicinity to the mountain
ridge of Lammermoor renders the
assimilation a perfect one." So faint a denial
—like a woman's no, when uttered with a
smile—may be taken as an affirmative.
The Kelpie's Flow, or the quicksand on
the shore, where the lordly lover sank to
rise no more, leaving but the plume of his
hat above the waves to tell of his tragic
fate, is purely imaginary, and need not
be looked for. A few miles further west
we pass the town of Dunbar, famous as the
place from whence, in the memorable year
of the '45, Sir John Cope sent his challenge
to "bonnie Prince Charlie." This
challenge led to the battle of Prestonpans, and
the defeat of Cope, and afforded, as all the
world knows, great aid and comfort to the
Jacobites.

Still skirting the coast of Haddingtonshire,
and about two miles east of North
Berwick, we arrive at the ruins of another
fortalice—the famous tower of Tantallon,
once the stronghold of the great Scottish
family of Douglas. It was besieged, when
held by the Earl of Angus, by King James
the Fifth, of erotic and romantic memory.
It was in the olden time a common saying
that it was as easy to make a bridge to the
Bass as to "ding doon Tantallon." But
Tantallon was beaten down, nevertheless,
as many stronger fortresses have been. The
base of the precipitous rock on which it
stands is washed on three sides by the sea,
and the place was so strong by nature and
art that, until the invention of gunpowder,
it defied all attempts at capture. Even
gunpowder failed to reduce it when James
besieged it, and borrowed two of the
greatest guns of the day "thrawn (or
crooked) mouthed Meg" and her "marrow,"
or mate, from Dunbar, for the purpose.
The king, however, acquired it by the
flight of the Earl of Angus and a
compromise with the doughty captain at the
head of the garrison. What the king
failed to do in 1528 was done more than a
century afterwards by the grim
Covenanters, who beat down Tantallon when
held for Charles the First in 1639, and left
it the picturesque and desolate ruin which
it still remains.

The Bass Rock has been looming grandly,
though dimly, on the horizon during the
last dozen miles of our course, and the sea
being beautifully calm, and our captain
as placid and as accommodating as the
weather, we suggest that he should steam
the good ship round the northern, and
almost perpendicular side of the rock,
instead of taking the usual southern channel.
On so calm a day the deviation involves no
danger; and a delay of no more than ten
minutes or a quarter of an hour is of
trifling account in a voyage from the
Thames. To please his passengers, the
captain consents to do as required, and
we are rewarded by a spectacle as difficult
to describe in all its beauty as it is
impossible to forget. The rock, which forms
an island about a mile in circumference,
rises abruptly from the level of the sea
to a height of about four hundred and
twenty feet, but seems twice as lofty as
seen from the deck of the vessel. The
whole northern face of the rock is white
with sea-fowl, gulls, gannet, and solangeese,
who, alarmed by the appearance of
our vessel, rise to the air in countless
myriads, screaming and fluttering, in vain
protest against our unwelcome proximity.
The passengers are all more or less excited
at the novel sight. They shout, they roar,
they clap their hands, to alarm the birds;
the steward rings the big bell, and the
engineer, catching the contagion of the
moment, lets off the steam at the alarm
whistle, and the diabolical sound scares
some thousands more of the older and
more experienced birds, who had possibly
treated our intrusion with philosophic
indifference. "And as we glower, amazed
and curious," like Tam o' Shanter, "the
mirth and fun grow fast and furious;" and
one frantic passenger, rushing up from
below with a gun in his hand, blazes away
at the birds to my intense disgust.
Happily the gun is not loaded, except with
powder, and the beautiful and harmless