The autumn of the following year was marked by a Royal visit to the Isle of Bute--a rare event in those parts, and one which for that reason aroused all the greater interest and appreciation. H.R.H. Prince Leopold was the guest of Lord and Lady Bute for four days at Mountstuart, arriving in the evening in Lord Glasgow's yacht _Valetta_ at the picturesque harbour of Rothesay, which was illuminated for the occasion. The Prince next day paid a kind of official visit to the {118} Aquarium (the chief public attraction of Rothesay), and had a most enthusiastic reception. On Sunday he attended service in the parish church, accompanied by the Protestant members of the house-party; and in the evening he was present at the Catholic service of vespers in Lord Bute's private chapel. A ball was given at Mountstuart during his visit; and he much enjoyed a cruise in the yacht round the islands, as well as a visit to the interesting colony of beavers which Bute had established some little time before on a spot adapted for their damming and tree-cutting operations. [Illustration: CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN] [Sidenote: 1875, The Cardiff vintage] From his boyhood Bute had been a lover of animals, though, unlike the young hero of "The Mill on the Floss" (who "was very fond of animals--that is, of throwing stones at them"), he took no interest whatever in their destruction. Besides the beavers, to whose constitutions the dampness of the Bute climate ultimately proved fatal, he introduced a number of kangaroos (or rather wallabies) into the sheltered woods round Mountstuart; and his visitors used to view with surprise these agile little marsupials leaping about among the bushes, as much at home as, and indeed much less shy than, the familiar hare or rabbit of our English coverts. The acclimatisation of exotic shrubs in the grounds of his island home (where the prevailing mildness of temperature encouraged such experiments) was always a source of interest to him; whilst at Cardiff he derived particular pleasure from the success of his efforts to grow grapes there for wine-producing purposes. Vines were selected from the colder districts of France, and were planted in 1875 on the slopes of Castell Coch, near Cardiff, in light fibrous loam soil. One particular vine, the _Gamay Noir_ (a favourite in the Paris {119} district), so flourished that a second and larger vineyard was propagated from it. Forty gallons of wine were made in the second year after planting, and after two or three bad seasons so good a vintage was secured in 1881 that the wine, pronounced by connoisseurs to resemble good still champagne, was all sold at excellent prices. The record year, however, was 1893, when the entire crop of forty hogsheads, or over a thousand dozen, of the wine realised a price which recouped all the expenses incurred during the previous eighteen years. Dr. Lawson Tait, as famous for his taste in wine as