We steam up the river as rapidly as is safe in a crowded, narrow channel. Our ship is now in fine trim. Her masts have been scraped, her decks scrubbed, and her sails enclosed in white canvas covers, while from every mast floats a flag--the Stars and Stripes over all. Swift river steamers shoot past us and ten thousand hammers ring in the chorus of labor on the splendid iron and steel vessels, which are the pride of Scotland and of world renown. We pass Cardross Castle in which Robert the Bruce died--the last two years of his life being written, as in the biography of Naaman--“a mighty man, but a leper.” On a high rock, nearly three hundred feet high, looms Dumbarton Castle, which has played so notable a part in Caledonian history. Even when Scotland joined the Union and became one with Great Britain, this was one of the four fortresses secured to the Land of St. Andrew, whose cross was laid on that of St. George to form the British flag. Here Wallace was betrayed and kept a prisoner. Here they have his alleged two-handed sword, now known to be a spurious relic. Not many miles away is Elderslie, his birthplace. Touching one’s imagination even more profoundly are the ruins of the old Roman wall built across the lower end of Scotland, which we pass as we sail by. The bright ivy covers it luxuriantly, and as the summer breeze kisses its surface, the lines of living green ripple, and dimple, and disappear in the distance along verdant miles. How it recalls the far past,-- “When Rome, the mistress of the world, Of old, her eagle wings unfurled.” Aloft is a monument, to which we take off our hats, in honor of Henry Bell, who introduced steam navigation into Europe. Many times afterwards did we see the Clyde and its great monuments of industry and history. Yet one’s first impressions are almost always the most vivid, and from this initial experience, which holds longest the negatives of memory, are printed the brightest pictures. It was two o’clock when we moored off the dock. Passing the slight examination of the polite custom-house officers, we stepped once more upon solid earth,--the land of Burns and Scott. CHAPTER III GLASGOW: THE INDUSTRIAL METROPOLIS