and crowned by a vast skeleton of a cathedral
near the Bridge of Allan, until it skirts the
sea, when it passes over a deeply indented
coast, and thence by a noble bridge across the
Dee to the northern capital. The hurried
glance of one mountain-bound little qualifies
him to speak of that ancient and stately city—
combining the charms of sea-neighbourhood
with the bustle of commerce and the associations
of learned leisure and aspiring study,—
but it is impossible to pass the Marischal
College without recollecting that it produced,
among its illustrious students, one—Captain
Dugald Dalgetty—destined to exist as long as
its walls. Next to its universities, and before
its quay and its warehouses, I rejoiced in its
large plots of grass open to the sea, on which
lads of all ages were playing at cricket, in
half a dozen parties, with an energy which
spoke as well for their moral as their intellectual
training. My only business— that of
ascertaining that I could obtain a line of conveyances
to Braemar on the morrow—was soon
accomplished, and I had nothing but the
weather to fear. That opened in the morning
in heaviest wet; but I have long learned that
the wisest course to pursue with bad weather is
to defy it, and take your chance of its amending
— (which when things are at the worst
they must do)—and, therefore, in spite of the
remonstrant looks of a very civil host, I set
out at nine on my way. In this instance,
my usual confidence in the amendment of bad
weather was strengthened by the knowledge
that the Queen was on that day to start from
Osborne for the region I was about to visit,
and must bring sunshine with her; and so it
happened; for the rain ceased, and the sun
came out; and though, on my return, upon
the day of her journey from Edinburgh to
Balmoral, the morning was again wet at
Aberdeen, and at Stonehaven (whither multitudes
of the Aberdeenian citizens resorted in the
hope to catch a glimpse of her features on her
quitting the train for her carriage) the laurels
and garlands were wofully drenched, before
we met the royal train all was bright; and so
we found it had been throughout her Majesty's
progress; and so it continued to Balmoral.
So be it ever!

The journey from Aberdeen to the
Highlands is only bright with lowland prettiness,
as far as Ballater; but it is made very
cheerful by the frequent presence of the Dee,
to whose upward course the traveller is
faithful. Having traversed its sides for
nearly eighty miles, I may bear witness to
its deserving the character of cheerfulness
eminently among rivers. The mountain-born
streams are generally more capricious; if they
sometimes expand in wide brilliancy, they
are more often shadowed by lofty banks
interrupted by rocks, or narrowed into gloomy
depths; but the Dee, with the signal exception
of the remarkable passage, called ' The
Linn of Dee," runs broad in sunlight, rapid
as any leaping brook, and flashes on without
the urgency of obstacles, as if animated by a
single inspiration. Its banks lie nearly level
with its surface, or slope gently to it; when
they are covered with verdure, the grass is
fringed with bright yellow flowers; when they
are edged with pebbles, the light brown stones
glisten like a riband; and, if trees border its
windings, they are usually delicate birches, that
droop with their pendent tracery on the shore,
and intrude no bough to darken its water.

Ballater partakes of the cheerful character
of its stream. Placed at the threshold—
scarcely at the threshold—of the mountain
region, it affords a pleasant holiday retreat
for the serious burgesses of Aberdeen—a
watering-place in miniature— with a small but
pretty inn, which has a very small and very
pretty garden; a small church; a few small
lodging-houses, and, it is said, balls and
concerts in the season to match; which might
supply a romantic chapter to Little Pedlington,
if, as I wish, Mr. Poole had health to add
it. As we hence ascend the Dee, a nobler
region opens; heath-clad banks expand on
each side above groves of birch; and the great
mountain of Loch-na-gar, at the distance of
ten miles, is seen in the dark glory of
precipice wreathed up to a pinnacle, and falling
in gentle curves to be upraised again in
two lower turrets. This mountain, of the
height of three thousand eight hundred
feet, is not usually regarded as belonging
to the Cairngorm cluster, but is claimed as
a far-advanced. Grampian; and, in form and
structure, resembles the western mountains,
being peaked and abrupt, and composed of
dark granite.* And now the Dee sweeps
boldly round a level tract of meadow land,
dotted with trees, and crowned by a wooded
bank, beneath which is a white miniature
castle, expanded obviously with a view to
comfort without regard to show; and you
recognise, with an affection by which the
principle of loyalty has seldom been so richly
imbued, the Castle of Balmoral. It has been
obviously chosen by true lovers of the country,
who are willing to make robust exertions to
enjoy it; for, lying at the entrance of a region
of mountain grandeur, it affords scarcely a
glimpse of. its majesties, not even of Loch-na-
gar, which, to the traveller pacing the road,
seems like a dark curtain spread out on high
among the western clouds. Beyond the royal
pleasure-house, the valley contracts, and the
groves of birch thicken till they embower the
castle of Abergeldie, whence Burns, with the
mingled daring of the poet and the veteran,
stole the air which has been devoted to the

* The guide-books differ with each other—perhaps with
themselves—as to the extent of application the term
Grampian should have to the Scottish hills; but in the most
limited sense, confined to the mountains of which Ben Lomond
is the centre, it must include some hundred square miles—
an extent which would seem to indicate that the Highland
region was little known in Edinhurgh when the tragedy of
"Douglas" was written, unless young Norval intended to
give an illusory account of his paternal residence, when he
described his father as "keeping his flocks" upon the
" Grampian hills."