of Ayr, and on our way to the green, where the procession
was to assemble, passed under the triumphal arch thrown across the
street opposite the inn where Tarn O'Shanter caroused so long with
Souter Johnny. Leaving the companies to form on the long meadow
bordering the shore, we set out for the Doon, three miles distant.
Beggars were seated at regular distances along the road, uttering the
most dolorous whinings. Both bridges were decorated in the same manner,
with miserable looking objects, keeping up, during the whole day, a
continual lamentation. Persons are prohibited from begging in England
and Scotland, but I suppose, this being an extraordinary day, license
was given them as a favor, to beg free. I noticed that the women, with
their usual kindness of heart, bestowed nearly all the alms which these
unfortunate objects received. The night before, as I was walking through
the streets of Glasgow, a young man of the poorer class, very scantily
dressed, stepped up to me and begged me to listen to him for a moment.
He spoke hurriedly, and agitatedly, begging me, in God's name, to give
him something, however little. I gave him what few pence I had with me,
when he grasped my hand with a quick motion, saying: "Sir, you little
think how much you have done for me." I was about to inquire more
particularly into his situation, but he had disappeared among the crowd.

We passed the "cairn where hunters found the murdered bairn," along a
pleasant road to the Burns cottage, where it was spanned by a
magnificent triumphal arch of evergreens and flowers. To the disgrace of
Scotland, this neat little thatched cot, where Burns passed the first
seven years of his life, is now occupied by somebody, who has stuck up a
sign over the door, "_licensed to retail spirits, to be drunk on the
premises_;" and accordingly the rooms were crowded full of people, all
drinking. There was a fine original portrait of Burns in one room, and
in the old fashioned kitchen we saw the recess where he was born. The
hostess looked towards us as if to inquire what we would drink, and I
hastened away--there was profanity in the thought. But by this time, the
bell of Old Alloway, which still hangs in its accustomed place, though
the walls only are left, began tolling, and we obeyed the call. The
attachment of the people for this bell, is so great, that a short time
ago, when it was ordered to be removed, the inhabitants rose en masse,
and prevented it. The ruin