[Image] Craig-Ellachie Bridge. Its appearance is highly picturesque. The scattered pines and beech trees on the side of the impending mountain, the meadows along the valley of the Spey, and the western approach road to the bridge cut deeply into the face of the rock, combine, with the slender appearance of the iron arch, in rendering this spot one of the most remarkable in Scotland.*[13] An iron bridge of a similar span to that at Craig-Ellachie had previously been constructed across the head of the Dornoch Frith at Bonar, near the point where the waters of the Shin join the sea. The very severe trial which this structure sustained from the tremendous blow of an irregular mass of fir-tree logs, consolidated by ice, as well as, shortly after, from the blow of a schooner which drifted against it on the opposite side, and had her two masts knocked off by the collision, gave him every confidence in the strength of this form of construction, and he accordingly repeated it in several of his subsequent bridges, though none of them are comparable in beauty with that of Craig-Ellachie. Thus, in the course of eighteen years, 920 miles of capital roads, connected together by no fewer than 1200 bridges, were added to the road communications of the Highlands, at an expense defrayed partly by the localities immediately benefited, and partly by the nation. The effects of these twenty years' operations were such as follow the making of roads everywhere--development of industry and increase of civilization. In no districts were the benefits derived from them more marked than in the remote northern counties of Sutherland and Caithness. The first stage-coaches that ran northward from Perth to Inverness were tried in 1806, and became regularly established in 1811; and by the year 1820 no fewer than forty arrived at the latter town in the course of every week, and the same number departed from it. Others were established in various directions through the highlands, which were rendered as accessible as any English county. Agriculture made rapid progress. The use of carts became practicable, and manure was no longer carried to the field on women's backs. Sloth and idleness gradually disappeared before the energy, activity, and industry which were called into life by the improved communications. Better built cottages took the place of the old mud biggins with holes in their roofs to let out the smoke. The pigs and cattle were treated to a separate table. The dunghill was turned to the outside of the house. Tartan tatters gave place to the produce of Manchester and Glasgow looms; and very soon few young persons were to be found who could not both read and write English.