III. LEITH TO ABERDEEN.

1. OUR course is northward; but we must first sail a few miles up the Firth, and then cross to the other side. It is now fine and bright; and we meet vessels, which have taken shelter here from the storm, floating gently down to go out to sea again. Look on both sides, observe another sign of shelter-the green woods skirting the shores, coming in places close to the water's edge. We have hardly seen this before, except in the Isle of Wight, and in a few favoured spots. The whole scene is very beautiful; we had even a better view of it when we stood on the Calton Hill.

2. A little farther north is the Firth of Tay. Here is Dundee, a busy seaport and manufacturing town, the largest we have yet come to in Scotland, and one of the very few manufacturing towns that stand on the shore.

3. But I want to point out to you a strange sight. A little beyond Dundee you can see, high above each side of the river, the signs of a line of railway; and if you follow it on with your eye, till it comes directly over the water's edge, it stops! There is no bridge to carry it over! But surely, it was never meant to bring passengers to the edge,

and leave them there; and it is far too high, if they had to cross by a ferry. What can it mean? It

storm, it fell while a train was passing along it, and not one person escaped to tell the tale. For some weeks after, bodies were washed ashore, all along the banks of the Firth of Tay; but many were never found. People thought at the moment, 'Surely they will not think of putting up such a bridge again!' But, you know, we do not choose in this country to be beaten in anything we have tried to do; and the people of Dundee, having once got used to the short-cut made by the bridge, would not like to have to do without it. So there is no

doubt that, before many years are

over, there will be a new bridge at the same spot; and either before it, or soon after it, there will be another of the same kind over the Forth at Queensferry.

4. After leaving the Firth of Tay, we sail by another long line of unbroken coast. But it is very different from the East coast of England. The rocks are harder, especially the hardest of all, the granite of Aberdeenshire; behind the coast-line in the distance, we can catch sight of real mountains; and, though there are no wide openings, the rivers whose mouths we pass are larger and much more rapid. Can you give a reason, from what I have just told you, why they should flow more swiftly? The only names which I need give you are the North and South Esk, the Dee, and the

Don. Each of these names, except the last, we have heard before: do you remember where?

The only important town on this coast is Aber

deen: the others are small places.