the mirk darkness of a long tunnel, we emerge into daylight again; and there, sure enough, are the bright waters of the Clyde.  We are on its south side; it has spread out to the breadth of perhaps a couple of miles.  That rocky height on its north shore is Dumbarton Castle; that great mass beyond is Ben Lomond, at whose base lies Loch Lomond, the queen of Scottish lakes, now almost as familiar to many a cockney tourist as a hundred years since to Rob Roy Macgregor.  We keep close by the water’s edge, skirting a range of hills on which grow the finest strawberries in Scotland.  Soon, to the right, we see many masts, many great rafts of timber, many funnels of steamers; and there, creeping along out in the middle of the river, is the steamer we are to join, which left Glasgow an hour before us.  We have not stopped since we left Glasgow; thirty-five minutes have elapsed, and now we sweep into a remarkably tasteless and inconvenient station.  This is Greenock at last; but, as at Glasgow, the station is some forty feet above the ground.  A railway cart at the foot of a long stair receives the luggage of passengers, and then sets off at a gallop down a dirty little lane.  We follow at a run; and, a hundred and fifty yards off, we come on a long range of wharf, beside which lie half-a-dozen steamers, sputtering out their white steam with a roar, as though calling impatiently for their passengers to come faster.  Our train has brought passengers for a score of places on the Frith; and in the course of the next hour and a half, these vessels will disperse them to their various destinations.  By way of guidance to the inexperienced, a post is erected on the wharf, from which arms project, pointing to the places of the different steamers.  The idea is a good one, and if carried out with the boldness with which it was conceived, much advantage might be derived by strangers.  But a serious drawback about these indicators is, that they are invariably pointed in the wrong direction, which renders them considerably less useful than they might otherwise be.  Fortunately we have a guide, for there is not a moment to lose.  We hasten on board, over an awkward little gangway, kept by a policeman of rueful countenance, who punches the heads of several little boys who look on with awe.  Bareheaded and bare-footed girls offer baskets of gooseberries and plums of no tempting appearance.  Ragged urchins bellow ’Day’s Penny Paper!  Glasgow Daily News!’ In a minute or two, the ropes are cast off, and the steamers diverge as from a centre to their various ports.

We are going to Dunoon.  Leaving the ship-yards of Greenock echoing with multitudinous hammerings, and rounding a point covered with houses, we see before us Gourock, the nearest to Greenock of the places ‘down the water.’  It is a dirty little village on the left side of the Frith.  A row of neat houses, quite distinct from the dirty village, stretches for two miles along the water’s edge.  The hills rise immediately behind these.  The Frith