There are scenes on the coast worthy of any sketch-book; there are also curious seaside resorts that have not yet been vulgarised by hordes of summer visitors—infant fishing villages, set down by accident in the most romantic spots, occupied by hardy men and rosy women, who have children “paidling” in the water or building castles upon the sand. Such seascapes—for they look more like pictures than realities—may be witnessed from the deck of the steamboat on the way to Inverness or Ultima Thule. Looking from the steamer—if one cannot see the coast in any other way—at one of these embryo communities, one may readily guess, from the fond attitude of the youthful pair who are leaning on the old boat, that another cottage will speedily require to be added to the two now existing. In a few years there will be another; in course of time the four may be eight, the eight sixteen; and lo! in a generation there is built a large village, with its adult population gaining wealth by mining in the silvery quarries of the sea; and by and by we will see with a pleased eye groups of youngsters splashing in the water or gathering sea-ware on the shore, and old men pottering about the rocks setting lobster-pots, doing business in the crustaceous delicacies of the season. And on glorious afternoons, when the atmosphere is pure, and the briny perfume delicious to inhale—when the water glances merrily in the sunlight, and the sails of the dancing boats are just filled by a capful of wind—the people will be out to view the scene and note the growing industry of the place; and, as the old song says— “O weel may the boatie row, And better may she speed; And muckle luck attend the boat That wins the bairnies’ bread.” In good time the little community will have its annals of births, marriages, and deaths; its chronicles of storms, its records of disasters, and its glimpses of prosperity; and in two hundred years its origin may be lost, and the inhabitants of the original village represented by descendants in the sixth generation. At any rate, boats will increase, curers of herrings and merchants who buy fish will visit the village and circulate their money, and so the place will thrive. If a pier should be built, and a railway branch out to it, who knows but it may become a great port.