Dundee, no longer the “Bonnie Dundee” of the old ballad, is a great straggling manufacturing city, whose ancient landmarks have been almost swept away.  Its churches are modern, its one remaining gateway of doubtful antiquity, and there is little in the city itself to detain the tourist.  If its points of interest are too few to warrant a stay, its hotels—­should the one given in the guide-book and also locally reputed to be the best, really merit this distinction—­will hardly prove an attraction.  It is a large, six-story building, fairly good-looking from the outside, but inside dirty and dilapidated, with ill-furnished and uncomfortable rooms.  When we inquired of the manageress as to what might be of especial interest in Dundee, she considered awhile and finally suggested—­the cemetery.  From our hotel window we had a fine view of the broad estuary of the Tay with its great bridge, said to be the longest in the world.  It recalled the previous Tay bridge, which fell in a storm in 1879, carrying down a train, from which not a single one of the seventy or more passengers escaped.  Around Dundee is crowded much of historic Scotland, and many excursions worth the while may be made from the city by those whose time permits.

From Dundee an excellent road leads to Stirling by the way of Perth.  There is no more beautiful section in Scotland than this, though its beauty is not the rugged scenery of the Highlands.  Low hills, rising above the wooded valleys, with clear streams winding through them; unusually prosperous-looking farm-houses; and frequent historic ruins and places—­all combine to make the forty or fifty miles a delightful drive.  We did not pause at Perth, a city with a long line of traditions, nor at Dunblane, with its severely plain cathedral founded in 1100 but recently restored.

Stirling, the ancient capital, with its famous castle, its memories of early kings, of Wallace, Bruce and of Mary Stuart, and with its wonderfully beautiful and historic surroundings, is perhaps the most interesting town of Scotland.  No one who pretends to see Scotland will miss it, and no motor tour worthy of the name could be planned that would not lead through the quaint old streets.  From afar one catches a glimpse of the castle, perched, like that of Edinburgh, on a mighty rock, rising almost sheer from a delightfully diversified plain.  It is a many-towered structure, piercing the blue sky and surrounded by an air of sullen inaccessibility, while the red-cross flag flying above it proclaims it a station of the king’s army.  It is not by any means the castle of the days of Bruce and Wallace, having been rebuilt and adapted to the purpose of military barracks.  True, many of the ancient portions remain, but the long, laborious climb to the summit of the rock and the battlements of the castle will, if the day be fine, be better repaid by the magnificent prospect than by anything else.  If the barrack castle is a little disappointing, the wide sweep of country fading