earing seaport of about thirty thousand people. It is a
thriving business town with an unusually good electric street-car
system, fine hotels and (not to be forgotten by motorists) excellent
garages and repair shops.

Ayr is one of the objective points of nearly every tourist who enters
Scotland. Its associations with Burns, his birthplace, Kirk Alloway, his
monument, the "Twa Brigs," the "Brig O' Doon," and the numerous other
places connected with his memory in Ayr and its vicinity, need not be
dwelt on here. An endless array of guide-books and other volumes will
give more information than the tourist can absorb and his motor car will
enable him to rapidly visit such places as he may choose. It will be of
little encumbrance to him, for he may leave the car standing at the
side of the street while he makes a tour of the haunts of Burns at
Alloway or elsewhere.

It was a gloomy day when we left Ayr over the fine highway leading to
Glasgow, but before we had gone very far it began to rain steadily. We
passed through Kilmarnock, the largest city in Ayrshire. Here a splendid
memorial to Burns has been erected, and connected with it is a museum of
relics associated with the poet, as well as copies of various editions
of his works. This reminds one that the first volume of poems by Burns
was published at Kilmarnock, and in the cottage at Ayr we saw one of the
three existing copies, which had been purchased for the collection at an
even thousand pounds.

We threaded our way carefully through Glasgow, for the rain, which was
coming down heavily, made the streets very slippery, and our car showed
more or less tendency to the dangerous "skid." Owing to former visits to
the city, we did not pause in Glasgow, though the fact is that no other
large city in Britain has less to interest the tourist. It is a great
commercial city, having gained in the last one hundred years three
quarters of a million inhabitants. Its public buildings, churches, and
other show-places--excepting the cathedral--lack the charm of antiquity.
After striking the Dumbarton road, exit from the city was easy, and for
a considerable distance we passed near the Clyde shipyards, the
greatest in the world, where many of the largest merchant and war
vessels have been constructed. Just as we entered Dumbarton, whose
castle loomed high on a rocky island opposite the town, the rain ceased
and the sky cleared with that changeful rapidity we noticed so often in
Britai