The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast. Various

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      DUNDEE.

      Far other are the impressions produced by the appearance, above the water level, and running for part of the way alongside its successor, of the foundations of the first Tay Bridge. This ill-fated undertaking had only been eighteen months open for traffic, when, on a wild night at the close of 1879, the whole of the central portion collapsed and fell into the raging Firth, carrying along with it a train, with its freight of seventy or eighty passengers, which was crossing at the time. Not a soul survived to tell the circumstances of the catastrophe—the most dramatic and one of the most disastrous in the annals of railway accidents in this country. But subsequent inquiry left no doubt that, in the original scheme of the structure, sufficient allowance had not been made for the tremendous pressure put upon it by the currents of air scouring through this funnel of the Firth; and that much of the work, both in the brick foundations and steel superstructure, had been “scamped” and left without proper inspection, so that the first occasion of maximum strain—a passing train, while a tempest was at its height—brought the inevitable result.

      Dundonians love to survey their city and its surroundings from the “Law.” The spectacle is one they may well be proud of. Marvellous has been the change here since Dundee consisted of only four straggling streets, meeting at the central “place” of the “Market Gait,” and a congeries of narrow lanes running from these down to the harbour, consisting, as the local historian tells us, of rude jetties added to the natural haven opening between the headlands of the Chapel Craig and the Castle Rock. Even then, however—four centuries ago and more—it had an interesting history; even then the energy of its burgesses and its favourable position at the mouth of the Tay enabled it to carry on a brisk trade with the ports of Holland and the Baltic. Already its Castle, near the head of the Seagate, had suffered sieges; its Constables, the Scrymgeours, were the standard-bearers of Scotland in the national war, and the town disputed with Perth which was the more ancient and honourable. Its situation at the foot and on the slope of the fine acclivity facing the sun and the Tay, got for it from its Lowland and Highland neighbours its name of “Bonny Dundee” and the “pleasant town.” It has vastly increased its trade and importance since; but it has also increased its amenities; and even the casual eye overlooking it can see, by the handsome spires and towers rising beside the forest of masts and factory stalks that stretch along the shore, and by the open spaces—Albert Square, and the Baxter and Balgay Parks—that the town is mindful of art and air and beauty, as well as of business. The castles—the early building on the Castle Hill, and the later fortalice of the Constables at Dudhope—have disappeared to the foundations. But the fine old square tower of St. Mary’s, in the Nethergate, is still a handsome and conspicuous landmark of Dundee, spite of all the competition of its modern buildings. Although it can hardly be part of the original structure erected by David, Earl of Huntingdon—the hero of the “Talisman”—in gratitude for his escape from manifold perils while serving under Richard Cœur-de-Lion in Palestine, it is a venerable and stately object, and the Dundonians have had this their chief antiquity carefully restored.

      That Dundee has not more remnants left of its early consequence is due to the march of modern improvement, and to the hard knocks it suffered in times of civil war and invasion. After Pinkie, the English troops seized upon the Castle of Broughty Craig—which, like the Tower of St. Mary’s, has been restored, and now guards the entrance to the Firth, with the pleasant backing of marine villa residences and stretches of links and sands much frequented by the good folks of the burgh—and Broughty besieged Dundee, and Dundee Broughty, for two or three years before the intruders were expelled. A hundred years later Montrose and his Irish and Highland kernes swooped suddenly down upon it from the upper valley of the Tay, and plundered and sacked the Covenanting place, the leader looking on from the “Corbie Hill,” while the followers burned, slew, and wasted in the streets below. The townsmen magnanimously forgot this when, a few years later, the “Great Marquis” was brought into it, a captive in the hands of his enemies; and “though Dundee,” says Wishart, “had suffered more by his army than any other within the kingdom, yet were they so far from insulting him, that the whole town testified very great sorrow for his woful condition.” Next year—1651—Dundee had again to endure sack and capture, at the hands of General Monk, when the garrison was put to the sword, the town burned, and, as Carlyle says, “there was once more a grim scene of flames, blood, and rage and despair transacted upon this earth.” Claverhouse is close by the town, and John Graham—that other “evil genius of the Covenant”—was Constable of Dudhope, and took his title from “Bonny Dundee.”

      The “bloody Mackenzie” was another of its sons or neighbours; Camperdown House, the home of the valiant Admiral Duncan, is behind Balgay and the busy suburb of Lochee. But, if it has reared many “men of blood,” Dundee has been still more prolific in historians and poets, reformers and inventors, of whom Boece and Wedderburn, Halyburton and Carmichael, are representative names. Yet longer is the list of its merchant princes, and its munificent patrons of art and benefactors of the town, of whom the Baxter family are types. They have made of Dundee a great and busy centre of maritime commerce, and placed it first among the trading places of the kingdom in the importation and manufacture of jute; and they have not forgotten generous aid in endowing the town with public parks, museums, libraries, educational institutions, and other resources of civilisation, such as few seats of industry of its size can boast.

      Dundee has spread over the green slopes and orchard grounds below the Law; but it has only increased the circumference of its fine environment of land and sea. Westward, the view extends over the fertile Carse, and range on range of the Grampians, amid which may be descried Ben Lomond and Schiehallion, and many a Highland peak besides. Behind the Law, the eye rises from the rich valley of the Dichty, flowing by Strathmartine and Claverhouse towards the sea at Monifieth Sands, to the Hill of Auchterhouse, Craig Owl, and other extensions of the Sidlaws, with glimpses of the heads of the loftier hills of Strathmore peeping over their shoulders; and, ridge behind ridge, these uplands subside as they stretch eastward, past many a storied and beautiful scene, towards Arbroath and the sea. Southward, beyond the Firth and the bridge, the rocky northern shores and hilly backbone of Fife are spread out like a map; and behind Newport and Tayport and the waste expanse of Tents Moor shimmer the waters of St. Andrew’s Bay and the Eden Estuary, and rise the grey, weather-beaten towers of St. Rule’s Cathedral and of Cardinal Beaton’s Castle, beside the green links and white СКАЧАТЬ