To the focus of Scottish history, Stirling, we hied during several of our journeyings in Scotland. As with Niagara, at the first vision one may not have grasped the full glory, but a second or third view deepened one’s impression. There are others, however, who in imagination, after having read Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” have pictured to their minds “Stirling’s towers” and were not in the least disappointed, when beholding for the first time the reality in stone. A great rock, like that in Edinburgh, rises sheer from the plain. The tourist sees one of those natural fortresses, around which, first a church, then a fair, then a village, then a town, and finally, a famous city have had their evolution. One needs but little power of the historic imagination to go back to the days before the streets, avenues, and imposing buildings of to-day existed, and think of steel-clad knights and long trains of men with claymore and target. The castle, built on a precipitous rock, overlooks one of those low, flat, alluvial plains, which the Scots call a carse. Stirling, which had several names, in different forms, beside the Gaelic “Struithla,” was also known as “Snowdon,” as those may remember who have read Scott. If there be one place north of the Tweed, where, at a single glance, one may view and comprehend the chief river system of Scotland, Stirling is that place. From this point one notes the main streams, the affluents, and the gathering of the waters, which make the Clyde, the Forth, and the Tay. He can then realize how great and how important in the political and economic history of Scotland has been that great central valley, which stretches from the North Sea to the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Stirling touches Scottish history very early. It was so strong, in 1304, that at its most famous siege, by Edward I, pretty much all the besieging implements and heavy siege machinery had to be brought from the Tower of London. At last, one engine, called “the Wolf,” was so terribly destructive that, by filling up the ditch with stones and rubbish, the English rushed over and fought their way into the keep. The castle was taken and for ten years it remained in the possession of the Southrons. In fact, it was to maintain the English grip upon this stronghold that Edward II assembled that mighty army for invasion, which was so signally defeated by the Bruce at Bannockburn. [Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE, FROM THE KING’S KNOT] When one thinks of that decisive battle, which turned the face of Scotland for hundreds of years to France, for her art and culture, instead of to her nearer southern neighbor, England, he is apt to muse upon the different results had Edward succeeded. Possibly an early union of Scotland and England and fusion of the two peoples might have been the result and the ensuing story have been best for civilization and humanity; but certainly Scotland’s history would not have been either so interesting or so inspiring.