The top of Moncrieffe--or Moredun--beside the foundations of the old Pict fort or _dun_, is the right station whence to survey Strathearn--a valley that rivals that of the Tay itself in the place it holds in the national history and in the affections of the lovers of scenic beauty. Directly below the steep pine-covered crest of Moredun runs the winding Earn, separating the park and woods of Moncrieffe from the pleasant watering-place of Bridge of Earn. Near the confluence with the Tay is Abernethy, its "Round Tower" coeval, perhaps, with the introduction of Christianity to this part of the Tay, and its Castle Law on which, says tradition, Nechtan and other Pictish kings held their state during the two centuries and a half when this decayed little burgh was the capital of the land. Beyond, in the same direction, are the waters of the Firth; Mugdrum Island, long and low; Newburgh, and Norman Law, the Norsemen's look-out, rising on one side above old Ballenbriech Castle and the Fife shores, and on the other commanding the "Howe o' Fife" and the Loch of Lindores. Beside the venerable ruins of Lindores Abbey, close to Newburgh and the Firth, are buried the murdered "heir of Scotland," David, Duke of Rothesay, and James of Douglas--the "grey monk of Lindores"--the last of the ambitious race of the Black Douglases. In the same vicinity, in a glen or pass of the Ochils, stood another grim memorial of feudal or pre-feudal times, "Cross Macduff," now represented only by its pedestal, where the taker of life, if he could "count kin," within nine degrees, with the Thane of Fife, the head of Clan Macduff, could find refuge, and proffer the "blood-penny" in atonement.