, "We are
compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses." How can they be
witnesses, if they cannot see and be cognizant?

We left the place by a winding walk, to go to the famous bridge of
Balgounie, another dream-land affair, not far from here. It is a single
gray stone arch, apparently cut from solid rock, that spans the brown
rippling waters, where wild, overhanging banks, shadowy trees, and
dipping wild flowers, all conspire to make a romantic picture. This
bridge, with the river and scenery, were poetic items that went, with
other things, to form the sensitive mind of Byron, who lived here in his
earlier days. He has some lines about it:--

"As 'auld lang syne' brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch, plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall,
All my boy-feelings, all my gentler dreams,
Of what I then dreamt clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring,--floating past me seems
My childhood, in this childishness of mind:
I care not--'tis a glimpse of 'auld lang syne.'"

This old bridge has a prophecy connected with it, which was repeated to
us, and you shall have it literatim:--

"Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa',
Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mare's a foal,
Doon ye shall fa'!"

The bridge was built in the time of Robert Bruce, by one Bishop Cheyne,
of whom all that I know is, that he evidently had a good eye for the
picturesque.

After this we went to visit King's College. The tower of it is
surmounted by a massive stone crown, which forms a very singular feature
in every view of Aberdeen, and is said to be a perfectly unique specimen
of architecture. This King's College is very old, being founded also by
a bishop, as far back as the fifteenth century. It has an exquisitely
carved roof, and carved oaken seats. We went through the library, the
hall, and the museum. Certainly, the old, dark architecture of these
universities must tend to form a different style of mind from our plain
matter-of-fact college buildings.

Here in Aberdeen is the veritable Marischal College, so often quoted by
Dugald Dalgetty. We had not time to go and see it, but I can assure you
on the authority of the guide book, that it is a magnificent specimen of
architecture.

After this, that we might not neglect the present in our zeal for the
past, we went to the marble yards, where they work the Aberdeen granite.
This granite, of which