drive for several miles was objectless and dreary. When we had
ascended a hill, leaving Kilbride on the left, we passed under the
walls of an ancient tower. What delightful ideas are associated
with the sight of such venerable remains of antiquity!

Leaving that lofty relic of our warlike ancestors, we descended
again towards the shore. On the one side lay the Cumbra Islands,
and Bute, dear to departed royalty. Afar beyond them, in the hoary
magnificence of nature, rise the mountains of Argyllshire; the
cairns, as my brother says, of a former world. On the other side of
the road, we saw the cloistered ruins of the religious house of
Southenan, a nunnery in those days of romantic adventure, when to
live was to enjoy a poetical element. In such a sweet sequestered
retreat, how much more pleasing to the soul it would have been, for
you and I, like two captive birds in one cage, to have sung away our
hours in innocence, than for me to be thus torn from you by fate,
and all on account of that mercenary legacy, perchance the spoils of
some unfortunate Hindoo Rajah!

At Largs we halted to change horses, and saw the barrows of those
who fell in the great battle. We then continued our journey along
the foot of stupendous precipices; and high, sublime, and darkened
with the shadow of antiquity, we saw, upon its lofty station, the
ancient Castle of Skelmorlie, where the Montgomeries of other days
held their gorgeous banquets, and that brave knight who fell at
Chevy-Chace came pricking forth on his milk-white steed, as Sir
Walter Scott would have described him. But the age of chivalry is
past, and the glory of Europe departed for ever!

When we crossed the stream that divides the counties of Ayr and