"As 'auld lang syne' brings Scotland, one and all, Scotch, plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall, All my boy-feelings, all my gentler dreams, Of what I then dreamt clothed in their own pall, Like Banquo's offspring,--floating past me seems My childhood, in this childishness of mind: I care not--'tis a glimpse of 'auld lang syne.'" This old bridge has a prophecy connected with it, which was repeated to us, and you shall have it literatim:-- "Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa', Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mare's a foal, Doon ye shall fa'!" The bridge was built in the time of Robert Bruce, by one Bishop Cheyne, of whom all that I know is, that he evidently had a good eye for the picturesque. After this we went to visit King's College. The tower of it is surmounted by a massive stone crown, which forms a very singular feature in every view of Aberdeen, and is said to be a perfectly unique specimen of architecture. This King's College is very old, being founded also by a bishop, as far back as the fifteenth century. It has an exquisitely carved roof, and carved oaken seats. We went through the library, the hall, and the museum. Certainly, the old, dark architecture of these universities must tend to form a different style of mind from our plain matter-of-fact college buildings. Here in Aberdeen is the veritable Marischal College, so often quoted by Dugald Dalgetty. We had not time to go and see it, but I can assure you on the authority of the guide book, that it is a magnificent specimen of architecture. After this, that we might not neglect the present in our zeal for the past, we went to the marble yards, where they work the Aberdeen granite. This granite, of which we have many specimens in America, is of two kinds, one being gray, the other of a reddish hue. It seems to differ from other granite in the fineness and closeness of its grain, which enables it to receive the most brilliant conceivable polish. I saw some superb columns of the red species, which were preparing to go over the Baltic to Riga, for an Exchange; and a sepulchral monument, which was going to New York. All was busy here, sawing, chipping, polishing; as different a scene from the gray old cathedral as could be imagined. The granite finds its way, I suppose, to countries which the old, unsophisticated abbots never dreamed of.