Culross--Koo'ross, as the name sounds familiarly to the ears of those who know it--cherishes a fond tradition that Turner the painter, who visited Sir Robert Preston at the Abbey in the beginning of the century, compared its bay with that of Naples, rather to the disadvantage of the latter. Local partiality is doubtless the father of the legend. Yet there are wonderful charms embraced by the curve of coast facing the south and the Firth, betwixt "Dunimarle and Duniquarle," with Preston Island and its ruined buildings in the string of the arc; the grey and white walls and red roofs of the little royal burgh, following the sinuosity of the shore, or struggling up the wooded slopes; the "corniced" roads and "hanging gardens" behind; crowning the near foreground, the Norman tower of the Abbey Church, the ruins of the ancient monastery, and the stately façade of the mansion of Culross Abbey (the design, it is said, of Inigo Jones); and behind, the forest, moorland, and cultivated tracts, rising towards the wavy green lines, fading into blue in the distance, of the Ochils and of the Cleish and Saline Hills. With the fresh light of morning or the soft colours of evening upon the waters and upon the hills, the scene may well be deemed lovely. Circumscribed as is the space, and few and insignificant as are the remaining actors, Culross and its vicinity have been the theatre of famous events, and have reared many men prominent in the civil and religious history of the country. Here St. Serf, the Apostle of Fife, is supposed to have been born, and to have died. Here St. Thenew, daughter of "King Lot of Lothian," landed from the rotten shallop in which she had been cast adrift at Aberlady, far down the coast, and gave birth to the more famous St. Kentigern, or Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow. From Culross downward, both shores of the Firth, and the islands in its midst, are strewn with the memorials and traditions of the early Culdee missionaries, whose humble cells later became the sites of the wealthier and more imposing religious houses of Catholic times. Besides St. Serf and St. Mungo, Fillan, Palladius, Adamnan, Adrian, Monans, and Columba himself, set their imprint upon these curving coasts and solitary islets; and Inverkeithing, Dysart, and Pittenweem; Abercorn, Inchcolm, Inchkeith, the May, and the Bass, are among the places sanctified by memories of the Early Church.