In the year 1883 the Queen published More Leaves from the Journal, and dedicated it “To my loyal Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, John Brown.”  They are records of her life in Scotland during the years 1862 to 1882.

In the August of 1862 a huge cairn, thirty-five feet high, was erected to the memory of the Prince Consort.  It was set on the summit of Craig Lowrigan, where it could be seen all down the valley.

A short extract will serve as a specimen of the Queen’s style of writing: 

“At a quarter to twelve I drove off with Louise and Leopold in the waggonette up to near the ‘Bush’ (the residence of William Brown, the farmer) to see them ‘juice the sheep.’  This is a practice pursued all over the Highlands before the sheep are sent down to the low country for the winter.  It is done to preserve the wool.  Not far from the burnside, where there are a few hillocks, was a pen in which the sheep were placed, and then, just outside it, a large sort of trough filled with liquid tobacco and soap, and into this the sheep were dipped one after the other; one man took the sheep one by one out of the pen and turned them on their backs; and then William and he, holding them by their legs, dipped them well in, after which they were let into another pen into which this trough opened, and here they had to remain to dry.  To the left, a little lower down, was a cauldron boiling over a fire and containing the tobacco with water and soap; this was then emptied into a tub, from which it was transferred into the trough.  A very rosy-faced lassie, with a plaid over her head, was superintending this part of the work, and helped to fetch the water from the burn, while children and many collie dogs were grouped about, and several men and shepherds were helping.  It was a very curious and picturesque sight.”

CHAPTER X:  The Great Exhibition

The idea of a “great exhibition of the Works and Industries of all Nations” was Prince Albert’s.  The scheme when first proposed in 1849 was coldly received in this country.  It was intended, to use the Prince’s own words, “To give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.”

The Times led the attack against the proposed site in Hyde Park, and the public was uneasy at the thought of large numbers of foreigners congregating in London, and at the expected importation of foreign goods.

As showing the absurd things which ‘John Bull’ could say at this time in his jealousy and dislike of foreigners the Prince wrote:  “The strangers, they give out, are certain to commence a thorough revolution here, to murder Victoria and myself, and to proclaim the Red Republic in England; the Plague is certain to ensue from the confluence of such vast multitudes, and to swallow up those whom the increased price of everything has not already swept away.  For all this I am to be responsible, and against all this I have to make efficient provision.”