From the fact that the nobles and gentry, on the estates adjoining provincial towns, had their winter residence in the city also, we find to-day, on either side of the Main Street of Stirling, what were once ancient mansions. These are now tenanted by humbler occupants. They show turrets and the crow-step gables, like those we meet with so frequently in Holland. The man who reared one of these dwellings foresaw the mutability of all things earthly and even in time the probable fall of his house. He seemed to read that law of Providence which raises the beggar from the dunghill and depresses the kings from their high seats to the level of common folks--as was sung long ago by the Virgin Mary and which under the old Manchu dynasty of China was enacted into a law. In the Central Empire every generation of the Imperial family stepped down one degree lower, until, in the ninth generation, they were able to claim the status and honors of the commoner. In modern English, the quaint inscription on the Stirling mansion would read:-- “Here I forbear my names or arms to fix, Lest I or mine should sell these stones or sticks.” Discovering, as we do, many evidences of French taste and importation, not only at Stirling, but throughout Scotland, besides noting so many points of contact between Scottish and French history, we can hardly wonder why Scottish people feel so much at home in the United States and why Americans and Scotchmen get along so well together. American taste in dress and household matters is certainly not English, nor were our ideas on the subjects of art and decoration inherited from our British ancestors. Our historic record and vocabulary, with the tendency of Americans to-day to go to Paris rather than London for their garments, the cultivation of their tastes, and for many of their ideas, show that the United States, like Scotland, has been mightily influenced by French taste. We, Scots and Yankees, are alike debtors to the land in which feudalism, chivalry, and Gothic art, and not a few canons of taste and things of beauty, reached their highest development. CHAPTER XI OBAN AND GLENCOE--CHAPTERS IN HISTORY Oban is the heart’s delight for a tourist, provided he does not arrive when the hotels are overcrowded. If one can get a room upon the high ridge overlooking the shining waters, he will have a view that is inspiring.