On the 24th of August the Queen arrived at Edinburgh, and took up her quarters at Holyrood Palace. In the afternoon she visited the Royal Infirmary, and on the following day she reviewed 40,000 Scottish Volunteers (who had come from the remotest parts of the country) in the great natural amphitheatre of the Queen’s Park. The spectacle was marred by the torrents of rain that fell all day, and the troops had to march past the saluting-point in a sea of slush and mud which reached nearly to their knees. The fine appearance and discipline of the men, the patience and hardihood with which they carried out their programme through all the miseries of the day, deeply touched the Queen. In spite of entreaties to the contrary, she persisted in sharing these discomforts with them, holding the review in an open carriage, in which she remained seated under a deluge of rain till the last regiment had defiled before her. From Edinburgh the Court proceeded to Balmoral. There the Queen received the melancholy news of the death of Mr. James A. Garfield, President of the United States, who had been shot by an assassin named Guiteau on the 2nd of July at the railway station at Washington. The wound was a mortal one, and, after lingering for many weeks in great pain, the President died on the 19th of September. The Queen sent a touching letter of sympathy to Mrs. Garfield, and ordered the Court to go into mourning, as if Mr. Garfield had been a member of the Royal caste. In this she had the concurrence of the people, who were profoundly moved by his tragic fate. His career, beginning in a log-hut in the backwoods of Ohio, and ending in the White House at Washington, was one of heroic achievement and independence, illustrating, in its various phases of vicissitude, the best qualities of Anglo-Saxon manhood. At Balmoral the Royal holiday was marked by the appearance of the Queen at some of the local sports. The Prince and Princess of Wales were at Abergeldie, and the retainers of the two families were frequently in the habit of playing cricket matches with each other. One of these took place at Abergeldie in September, when the Queen and her family and a brilliant suite attended and witnessed the play, her Majesty taking a keen interest in the varying fortunes of the day, and eagerly stimulating her own people to strive for victory. After the cricket match there were “tugs of war.” In this struggle the Abergeldie team, who had lost the cricket match, retrieved their defeat by conquering the Queen’s retainers. On the 23rd of November the Court returned to Windsor, and soon afterwards it was announced that the Duke of Albany was to be married to the Princess Hélène of Waldeck-Pyrmont. On the 16th of December her Majesty left Windsor for Osborne.