of great antiquity, dating, it is alleged, from Pictish times. The walls of the keep are in good preservation, and the lower floors, being vaulted, still remain. The surrounding wall, with circular towers, can be walked upon, but the main buildings in the area are only indicated by lines of foundation walls. From the side nearest in our view a sunken causeway formerly connected the castle with the promontory on which Kinross House stands, and it can still be traced at the bottom of the loch.

The surroundings of the loch include the Western Lomond, and the Bishop Hill on the north-west, and Benarty on the south. Regarding the last named hill, a retired politician is said to have written the following couplet, in retirement here,

The district traversed in reaching the loch impresses the visitor as being fruitful and prosperous, and there are abundant evidences around of much mineral wealth. It is, however, for angling purposes that Loch Leven attracts the greater number of its visitors. The Loch Leven trout are active and firm-fleshed, and are in much esteem both for the sport they yield and for the table. At the west end of the loch, close by the town of Kinross, boats are let for angling, and besides many private parties, a large number of clubs hold stated competitions on Loch Leven, and the 'baskets' made, and the prospects of sport, are the subject of daily reports in the Edinburgh and Glasgow newspapers. Beds and boats are telegraphed for in advance, regarding which a good story is told of an Edinburgh journalist, once famous with rod and line, who first sent a wire to the unsophisticated Kinrossians. When he arrived he saw that he was unexpected, and asked 'did you not get my message?' The reply was, 'Ou ay, we got a letter, but as it wasna in your ain handwriting, we paid nae attention to it!'

LOCH FAD.

This is one of the lochs without a history, although doubtless men have lived and died, married and given in marriage, laboured, plotted, and perhaps thieved and robbed upon its borders. It owes its presence in our collection because of its position in an island, and that one of the most tempting spots in the more lowland parts of Scotland. The island of Bute, which unites with Arran and the Greater and Lesser Cumbraes to make up a county to which Bute gives its name, lies on the west of the Frith of Clyde, and is separated from the mainland on the inner side by a narrow, tortuous, and picturesque channel called the Kyles of Bute. Landing at Rothesay we find a busy, cleanly, charming watering place, with suburbs of Craigmore and Port Bannatyne filling up the lovely shores of Rothesay Bay, and giving from every window enchanting peeps of water and hill, carrying the view far into the mountainous county of Argyle. Writing of this lovely, verdant island, David Macbeth Moir (the Delta of Blackwood,) says

So much for poetry. We may tell of Bute a more prosaic story, when a town-lady, going, as the Glasgow people say, 'doon the watter,' asked a lodging-house keeper in Rothesay about thunder, and received the very satisfactory rejoinder, more Scottice, in question form, 'Wha ever heard o' thunder in an island?'

Leaving Rothesay by the road near its centre, and passing the parish kirk, Loch Fad is found about two miles out. On the south side, forming the foreground and left of our view, the shores are low and green, but on the other side it swells out into bolder outlines, and may fitly claim to be a Highland loch. A curious mound crosses the water, leading to its northern side. On this side of the pretty island loch, Edmund Kean, in 1827, built himself a residence. From his windows, and more especially from a summer-house placed on the height above, there is a grand view, embracing not only the near waters of Loch Fad, but glimpses of Rothesay Bay, and on the outer line the bold features of Argyleshire. Over the doorway of this summer-house, the great tragedian had those lines