It is not a little remarkable that the only conception of the Devon put on paper by Robert Burns was as a clear winding river, whose sweet stream 'meandering flows.' The fact was that Burns was led to know that something was expected of him, and his muse was not to respond, for she acted spontaneously or not at all. A woman did eventually inspire him to write--ah! those women, how much of Burns' best thoughts did they command!--and he referred to the romantic stream only in order to tell that the 'bonniest flower' there had once been a sweet bud on the banks of his own beloved Ayr. The river Devon has a short and chequered existence, and after a course of thirty-four miles, falls into the Forth within five miles of its source. At that little bit of its journey when, after rising in Stirlingshire, it flows through Perthshire into Kinrosshire, and then doubles back across a peninsular bit of Perthshire to reach the county of Clackmannan, the stream goes through a series of vicissitudes that completely destroy its 'clear-winding' character. First there is the deep chasm across which the Rumbling Bridge is thrown. There are here two bridges, one over the other. The earlier bridge, built in 1713, eighty feet above the stream, is narrow and without a parapet, and there is a local tradition of a man who fell asleep in his cart being taken home safely over this exalted and narrow pathway by the instinct of his horse. The present bridge, a plain but strong erection, was built in 1816, and is one hundred and twenty feet above the stream, the latter hidden far below amidst inaccessible precipices and darkening woods. Further up the stream is the 'Devil's Mill,' said to be a waterfall, but so completely inaccessible, that the character of the place is very much a matter of conjecture. However, there is heard far down in the depths below the clack and beat of a mill; and as this goes on Sabbath and Saturday alike, the name quoted above has been bestowed on the unhallowed mill. It is understood that the water falls into a basin or chasm without outlet, carrying air with it, then the air bursts out with the boom that resembles the regulated beat of a mill. Be the cause what it may, the delusion is perfect.