There seems no general name to fit a part of Scotland which has a very marked character, that lowland shelf lying beyond the Grampians along the Moray Firth, where the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, Moray, and Nairn are comparatively flat on the north side, but on the south rise into grand mountains. The “back end of the Highlands” would not be a dignified title; “Moray and Mar” is not an inclusive one, nor is “Deeside and Speyside.” One seems driven to indicate this as the district of which Aberdeen is the capital, environed by the “four nations,” Angus, Mar, Buchan, and Moray, a division of local mankind copied by her university from Paris. Angus _alias_ Forfar, and Kincardine _alias_ the Mearns, are lowland counties whose streams come down from a Highland background to a coast-line of broad sandy links on the Tay estuary, and weatherworn sandstone cliffs facing the open sea. We might linger here by notable names beyond Dundee--Arbroath, with its ruined Abbey, the scene of the _Antiquary_; Montrose, that Flemish-like town that has belied its Cavalier name by rearing such sons as Andrew Melville, the reformer, and Joseph Hume, the [Illustration: DUNNOTTAR CASTLE, KINCARDINESHIRE] economist; Stonehaven, seat of the Barclays of Ury known in so different ways; and Brechin, with its Cathedral and Round Tower, neighboured by castles old and new. In this countryside settled the head of W. E. Gladstone’s family, which, however, had moved from some _Gledstone_ or “Hawk’s rock” in the south of Scotland to make fortunes in England by trade. Sir Thomas, the great Liberal’s brother, was a sound Conservative, of whom is told that at an election, seeing a son of the soil anxious to salute him, he stopped his carriage, and accepted a grasp of the horny hand, qualified by “For the sake o’ yer brither!”