And there are some members, possibly of a Glasgow Angling Club, one or two of them up to the knees in the Clyde in the pursuit of what they can get, even though it should be but a nibble. No more peaceful scene could be found for one who wants to get away from the cares of his ordinary daily life. I am content merely to be a reader of Walton’s books, which are like those that Horace had in his mind when he said that to read them was a medicine against ambitions and desires. Looking west, we have on our left hand the united parishes of Wiston and Roberton, with the Garf finding its way into the Clyde. We have now time after feasting our eyes in every direction to think of the hill itself. It is a wondrous mixture of volcanic product, a perfect museum of minerals—overlapping a huge mass of transition rocks. It probably bubbled into being in a series of red-hot upheavals at an epoch when all that which is now the low country of Lanarkshire was a muddy, torrid sea. It was much frequented by our heathen ancestors for their sanguinary Druidical rites, and perhaps blazed often with both their fires of idolatrous worship and their signal fires of war; for its name signifies “the Hill of Fire.” There is ancient precedent for the building of a cairn to commemorate any striking event. It is a favourite Scripture method of memorial, and has been much practised in our own Highlands. But as we stand by the side of the immense cairn which crowns Tinto, and which is understood to be equal to about 300 cart loads, we could not help feeling sympathy for our poor forefathers, who are said to have carried them up piecemeal through a series of ages, in the way of penance, from a famous Roman Catholic church which was situated in a little glen at the north-east skirt of the mountain, and we could not help saying that “the former times were” not “better than these.” We found that we had to pay for our splendid position by being exposed all through our stay on the summit to a stiff south-west wind, which reminded us of the popular rhyme— But tho’ a lassie were e’er sae black, Let her ha’e the penny siller, Set her up on Tinto tap, The wind wad blaw a man till her. On the “tap,” too, there is a “kist,” or large block of granite, with a hole in one side, said to have been caused by the grasp of Wallace’s thumb on the evening before his victory at Boghall, Biggar; just as Quothquand, a hill a little to the north-east, is crowned with a large stone known as Wallace’s chair, and popularly believed to have been his seat at a council held the same evening. The “kist” on the top of Tinto is the subject of another curious rhyme, which Mr. Robert Chambers thinks is intended as a mockery of human strength, for it is certainly impossible to lift the lid and drink off the contents of the hollow—