f, as Shelley has said, "Hell is a city much like London," Glasgow must be very much like the dungeon where Satan shuts up those who do not behave themselves.

The word "Glasgow" is of Celtic origin, and, it appears, means Sombre Valley.

The town has not given the lie to its name.

I have travelled from the south of England to the north of Scotland; I have seen every corner of the great towns, and I do not hesitate to give the palm to Glasgow: it is the dirtiest, blackest, most repulsive-looking nest that it was ever given to man to inhabit.

I am bound to say that the Scotch themselves, so justly proud of their old Scotland, dare not take it upon themselves to defend Glasgow: they give it over to the visitor, not, however, without having added, as a kind of extenuating circumstance:

"There is money in it."

At the time of the Reformation, Glasgow was but an insignificant little town with five thousand inhabitants. At the commencement of this century it contained about eight thousand. To-day it is the most important city of Scotland, a city which holds, including the suburbs, very nearly a million souls, tortured by the passion for wealth or by misery and hunger.

If the importance of the place is recent, the place itself dates back more than thirteen centuries. It was indeed in 560 that Saint Mungo founded a bishopric there, and no doubt, to try the faith of Donald, whom he had just converted to Christianity, he said to him, as he put an umbrella into his hands with strict injunctions never to part with it:

"For thy sins, Donald, here shalt thou dwell."

Glasgow is the home of iron and coal. Coal underground, coal in the air, coal on people's faces, coal everywhere!

There rise thousands of high chimneys, vomiting flames and great clouds of smoke, which settle down on the town and, mixing with the humidity of the streets, form a black, sticky mud that clogs your footsteps. No one thinks of wearing elastic-side boots. They would go home with naked feet if they did. Glasgow people wear carmen's boots, strongly fastened on with leather laces.

I assure you that if you were to fall in the street, you would leave your overcoat behind when you got up.

The neighbourhood of the sea and the Clyde has been, and still is, a source of prosperity and opulence to the town; and here it behoves me to speak of the Scotch energy, which has made of this stream a river capable of giving anchorage to vessels drawing twenty-four feet of water.

In 1769, the illustrious James Watt was directed to examine the river. At that time small craft could scarcely enter the river even at high water. Watt indeed found that, at low tide, the rivulet—for it was nothing else—had but a depth of one foot two inches, and at high tide never more than three feet three inches.

To-day you may see the largest ironclads afloat there. This gigantic enterprise cost no less than £10,300,000.

It was on the Clyde that Henry Bell, in 1812, launched the first steamboat. Since then the banks of the Clyde have been lined with vast shipbuilding yards, which turn out from four to five hundred vessels a year.

Glasgow always had a taste for smoke. Before the war of American Independence, this town had the monopoly of the tobacco commerce. Colossal fortunes were realised over the importation of the Virginian weed in the end of the last century. At present Glasgow trades in coal, machinery, iron goods, printed calico, etc.

The Glasgow man has been influenced by his surroundings. The climate is dull and damp, the man is obstinate and laborious; the ground contains coal and iron for the Clyde to carry to sea, and so the man is a trader.

And, indeed, what is there to be done in Glasgow but work? Out-of-door life is interdicted, so to speak; gaiety is out of the question; everything predisposes to industry and thought. People divide their time between work and prayer, the kirk and the counting-house; such is life in Glasgow.

And now let us take a stroll, or rather let us walk, for a stroll implies pleasure, and I certainly cannot promise you that.

The most striking feature of Glasgow is George Square. It is large, and literally crowded with statues, a regular carnival. It looks as if the Glasgow folks had said: "We must have some statues, but do not, for all that, let us encumber the streets with them; let us keep them out of the way in a place to themselves. If a visitor likes to go and look at them, much good may it do him." At a certain distance the effect is that of a cemetery, or picture to yourself Madame Tussaud's exhibition À la belle Étoile.

When I say À la belle Étoile, it is but a figure of speech in Glasgow.

In this exhibition of sculpture, I discover Walter Scott, Robert Burns, David Livingstone, James Watt, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Thomas Campbell, and Sir Robert Peel. Some are on foot, some on horseback. There are none driving, but there is Scott who, in the centre of this Kensal Green, is perched on the summit of a column eighty feet high. It is enough to make the tallest chimney of the neighbourhood topple over with envy. By dint of a little squeezing, it would be easy to make room for a dozen more statues.

In Queen's Street, quite close to George Square, we find the Royal Exchange—an elegant building in the Corinthian style—in front of which stands an equestrian statue of gigantic dimensions.

It is Wellington—the inevitable, the eternal, the everlasting Wellington.

Oh, what a bore that Wellington is!

This statue was erected at the expense of the town for a sum of £10,000.

Wellington will never know what he has cost his compatriots.

Let us go up George Street, turn to the left by High Street, towards the north-east, and we shall come to the Cathedral, the only one which the fanatic vandalism of the Puritans spared. I was told in Scotland that this is how it escaped. The Puritans had come to Glasgow in 1567 to destroy the Cathedral of Saint Mungo. But a gardener, a practical Scot of the neighbourhood, reasoned with them in the following manner:

"My friends, you are come with the meritorious intention of destroying this temple of popery. But why destroy the edifice? It will cost a mint of money to build such another. Could not you use this one and worship God in it after our own manner?"

The Puritans, who were Scots too, saw the force of the argument and the cathedral was saved.

The edifice is gothic, and very handsome. I recommend especially the crypt, under the choir. The windows are most remarkable.

Around the cathedral is a graveyard containing fine monuments. I read on a tablet, put up in commemoration of the execution of nine covenanters (1666-1684) the following inscription, which shows once more how they forgive in Scotland. Here is the hint to the persecutors:

"They'll know at resurrection day
To murder saints was no sweet play."