The Queen was especially charmed with the beautiful situation of the ancient city of Perth, and the enthusiastic reception which the multitudes there assembled gave to her. Prince Albert, too, was delighted, and likened the appearance of the place to Basle. At Scone Palace, which is within two miles of Perth, a very natural object of peculiar interest was the mound on which all the Scottish kings had been crowned. At Dunkeld the Highlands were fairly entered; and here the Royal party were met and escorted by a guard of Athole Highlanders, armed with halberts, and headed by a piper. One of them danced the sword dance, with which the travellers were greatly amused, and others of them figured in a reel. The longest sojourn made in the Highlands was at Taymouth, the seat of the Marquis of Breadalbane. The scenery here again revived recollections of Switzerland in the memory of Prince Albert, who was particularly prone, in this and subsequent visits to the North, to trace resemblances between its scenery and localities which he had visited in the tours of his bachelor days. The reception at Taymouth was magnificent, and quite captivated the illustrious guests. The Queen wrote in her journal-- The _coup d'oeil_ was indescribable. There were a number of Lord Breadalbane's Highlanders, all in the Campbell tartan, drawn up in front of the house, with Lord Breadalbane himself in a Highland dress at their head; a few of Sir Niel Menzies' men (in the Menzies red and white tartan), a number of pipers playing, and a company of the 92nd Highlanders, also in kilts. The firing of the guns, the cheering of the great crowd, the picturesqueness of the dresses, the beauty of the surrounding country, with its rich back-ground of wooded hills, altogether formed one of the finest scenes imaginable. It seemed as if a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his Sovereign. It was princely and romantic.