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FROM PERTH TO DUNDEE.

HAVING staid some time at Perth, I set out for Dundee through the Carse of Gowrie. In my way thither, I was glad to see such rich, well-dressed, and neatly inclosed fields, such substantial farmhouses, and so many evident marks of comfort among the farmers. The truth is, a good farm here is a little fortune, at least it was so some years ago; for I have the best information that a farmer got lately from lord Kinaird the sum of five thousand pounds for the right to the remainder of a lease of a farm on his lands that had only seven years to

run.

As among the people on the south side of the Tweed, prejudices against the Scots, are fast subsiding, so, fortunately, this is the case in most parts of Scotland with regard to the English; and I was glad to find the farmers here not only employing English servants, English drainers, English ploughs, English horses, but having English cows, English sheep, English fashions, and almost every thing English. In short, I was glad to see them talking so much about the Bakewell breed, and the many advantages arising from their intercourse with the English.

As I was riding slowly along near Kilspendie, I met a number of what may be termed begging gipsies. They were all merry, a wedding having been lately among them, which it seems was performed

by an aged man among them, who indeed had a respectable appearance. This gipsy parson, if I may use that expression, desiring them to join hands, and having broken a wine glass in a thousand pieces, by dashing it against a stone, declared, that as it was impossible for the art of man to put the parts of that glass together, exactly as it was before, so it was impossible for the art of man to separate that man and woman, which ended the ceremony.

DUNDEE.

Having arrived at Dundee, I was, as I had been at Perth, and other places, introduced by letter to a gentleman, who shewed me much civility. Dundee is a large and populous place, containing twentythree thousand souls, having manufactures of linen, cotton, Osnaburgs, sail cloth, sugar, glass, leather, &c. and considerable trade, principally to the Baltic and London. There is a hill rising to a great height on the north of the town, called Dundee Law, and sometimes the Bonnet Hill, from the long street or straggling village that stretches a great way up its side, being inhabited, formerly, chiefly by the makers of men's bonnets, such as we see in London, worn by the Highland soldiers. This manufacture, from the general introduction of hats, in imitation of the English, is now greatly on the decline. This straggling village, rising from the town at right angles, and the town itself, with the harbour and shipping, form a beautiful and grand object when sur

veyed from the Ferries on the Fife side of the Tay, and may well be called Bonny Dundee. But what is bonny, is not always, in all respects, gude. A great part of Dundee, situated on a Morass, is very insalubrious. In Dundee, it has been remarked, there are more dwarfish, decrepid, and deformed people, and fewer that arrive at old age, than in any other town of equal size in Scotland. On the top of the hill are the remains of a camp, formed first by Edward I. of England, and afterwards repaired by general Monk.

The river Tay, before Dundee, is three miles broad; and, being sheltered from high winds, by high lands on both sides, is a safe road for ships of the greatest burthen. The harbour is thought to be not inferior to any in Scotland. But the Tay, where it joins the sea, in the bay of St. Andrews, is not entered without much caution. At Dundee, as at Perth, there is, besides the public grammar school, an academy for mathematics and modern languages.

It is remarkable that the Carse of Gowrie, so little tinctured with religious zeal, should be flanked at each end by two of the greatest garrisons for zeal of this kind in all Scotland. Though Dundee was not a rival to Perth, either at the first or second reformation above-mentioned, in 1732, it was fully as zealous for the last half of the eighteenth century. Neither is it now nearly so much distinguished as Perth, by the elasticity of a rebound towards the contrary extreme.

When a vacancy happened in one of the kirks of Dundee, about thirty years ago, scouts were sent to all parts of Scotland, renowned for popular preaching, to make reports of what they should see and

T

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