ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

SLAINS CASTLE.

In traveling over the old lands of Europe one is sometimes apt to think more of historical and genealogical traditions than of the natural beauties or peculiarities of the country.  The old landmarks of a nation, whether monuments built by the hand of man or archives carefully preserved by him, tell us of its growth, just as the strata of the mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; and as every successive layer has some relation both to its predecessor and its successor, so the traditions of each generation have a perceptible influence upon the moral development of the generation following.  Every nation is thus the growing fruit of its own history, and every visible step of the grand ladder of facts that has led up to the present result must needs have for a student of human nature an intrinsic interest.

This comes very clearly before my mind as I think of Slains Castle (Aberdeen), a massive crown of granite set on the brow of the rocks of the German Ocean, and the seat of one of those old Scottish families whose origin is hidden away among the suggestive mists of tradition.

Slains Castle stands alone, a giant watchman upon giant cliffs, built up only one story high, on account of the tremendous winds that prevail there in spring and autumn, and cased with the gray Aberdeen granite of the famous quarries near by.  The surrounding country is as bare and uninviting as one could imagine; the road from Aberdeen (twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the young trees near the castle are stunted, and in many cases disfigured by the inroads of hungry cows among their lower branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs perpetually over the scene, softening the landscape, but sometimes depressing the spirits.  As the hours pass the place grows on you:  a weird beauty begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the desolate sea.

The original building is of the time of James VI. (of Scotland), and is due to Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more ancient castle, bearing the same name, was destroyed by the king to punish his vassal for the part he had taken in a rebellion.  In the seventeenth century Earl Gilbert made great improvements in it, and early in the eighteenth Earl Charles added the front.  In 1836 it was rebuilt by Earl William George, the father of the present owner, with the exception of the lower part of the original tower.  In this there used to be in olden times an oubliette in which unhappy prisoners were let down.  All at first appeared dark around them, but when they had thankfully assured themselves that they at last stood upon solid ground, they would look about them and presently descry a line of fitful light coming from a door ajar in their dungeon.  The poor victims would then go in haste to this door, pull it open and, blinded by the sudden light, step out upon the green slope terminating quickly in a precipice, which went sheer down to the sea.