A decided drawback about the sea-side places within twenty miles from Greenock, is their total want of that fine sandy beach, so firm and dry and inviting when the tide is out, which forms so great an attraction at Ardrossan, Troon, and Ayr.  At a few points, as for instance the West Bay at Dunoon, there is a beautiful expanse of yellow sand:  but as a rule, where the shore does not consist of precipitous rocks, sinking at once into deep water, it is made of great rough stones, which form a most unpleasant footing for bathers.  In front of most villas a bathing place is formed by clearing the stones away.  Bathing machines, we should mention, are quite unknown upon the Frith of Clyde.

So much for the locality which is designated by the phrase, Down the Water:  and now we can imagine our readers asking what kind of life Glasgow people lead there.  Of course there must be a complete breaking up of all city ways and habits, and a general return to a simpler and more natural mode of living.  Our few days at Dunoon, and a few days more at two other places on the Frith, were enough to give us some insight into the usual order of things.  By seven or half-past seven o’clock in the morning the steam is heard by us, as we are snug in bed, fretting through the waste-pipe of the early boat for Glasgow; and with great complacency we picture to ourselves the unfortunate business-men, with whom we had a fishing excursion last night, already up, and breakfasted, and hurrying along the shore towards the vessel which is to bear them back to the counting-house and the Exchange.  Poor fellows!  They sacrifice a good deal to grow rich.  At each village along the shore the steamer gets an accession to the number of her passengers; for the most part of trim, close-shaved, well-dressed gentlemen, of sober aspect and not many words; though here and there comes some whiskered and moustached personage, with a shirt displaying a pattern of ballet-dancers, a shooting coat of countless pockets, and trousers of that style which, in our college days, we used to call loud.  A shrewd bank-manager told us that he always made a mental memorandum of such individuals, in case they should ever come to him to borrow money.  Don’t they wish they may get it!  The steamer parts with her entire freight at Greenock, whence an express train rapidly conveys our friends into the heat and smoke of Glasgow.  Before ten o’clock all of them are at their work.  For us, who have the day at our own disposal, we have a refreshing dip in the sea at rising, then a short walk, and come in to breakfast with an appetite foreign to Paper Buildings.  It is quite a strong sensation when the post appears about ten o’clock, bearing tidings from the toiling world we have left behind.  Those families who have their choice dine at two o’clock—­an excellent dinner hour when the day is not a working one:  the families whose male members are in town, sometimes postpone the most important engagement of the day till their