Helensburgh is bounded on the east by Cardross parish, which you enter immediately on leaving a long dull wall at the extremity of the town. So dismally secluded is this part of Helensburgh from any possible view of the Firth, that between the highway and the rising ground on the north almost no buildings for years had been erected, though of late one or two speculators, more enterprising than judicious, have run up houses in an attempt to secure public favour to the locality; but as they seem to be always either to let or sell, we apprehend they have had leisure to regret their philanthropy. It is with a feeling of relief you emerge from this end of the burgh again into the open country, and to the ever cheerful view of the sea. A little way beyond the toll-house, on the north side of the road, stands the mansion-house of Drumfork, a plain, unpretending, but commodious building, surrounded by some fine old wood, and occupying a very picturesque situation. It used to be very much neglected—the grounds untrimmed, the fences dilapidated, and the whole premises had that sad, deserted aspect peculiar to many old country houses not regularly occupied, but has now passed into the hands of Mr. Reid, a tenant of great enterprise, who has not only wrought immense improvements on the farm connected with it, but also exercised great taste in renovating the building and lawns. The land here is a rich alluvium, and for several miles along the road the gently rising upland is highly cultivated, and bears very heavy crops. There are some of the farms on this and the adjoining Cambus-Eskan estate not surpassed for fertility or good husbandry by any in Dumbartonshire. Adjoining Drumfork, the policies of Cambus-Eskan stretch down towards the road. A handsome freestone lodge and gateway stand at the approach to the mansion, which occupies a commanding position on the rising ground, and is sheltered from the east wind by a high screen of hill and plantation. Below the road, and towards the river, is a stretch of land of considerable width, and which will, in all probability, in a few years, be occupied by villas, as it commands a beautiful view of the Firth, and is easily accessible by railway. The Cambus-Eskan grounds extend along the road about two miles, after. which you pass the small estate of Keppoch, where the road rises to a high level above the sea. From this point, a view of the Firth of Clyde, including Helensburgh, and the high range of hills to the west, strikes the eye of the tourist. There is, perhaps, not a lovelier prospect in Scotland, and we ha heard travellers affirm that nowhere had they seen it surpassed in the old or new world. Beneath lies the well-known promontory of Ardmore, connected with the mainland by a very narrow isthmus. If the tourist can afford leisure, he will find it worth his while to go a little out of his way to visit this beautiful spot. The whole promontory is about a and a half in circumference. Its centre is a circular wooded rock of some fifty or sixty feet in height, called the Hill of Ardmore, on which a stately mansion-house has been erected but which is not visible till you approach very closely to it. On various of the higher points rustic moss houses and bowers have been placed by the owners of Ardmore, commanding an ample prospect on either hand. At the base of the rock on the east, the gardens and orchard of the mansion-house are situated, and as the rocks are full of fissures, and clad with ivy and other creeping plants, they strike the eye with a picturesque effect. A rock-bound coast runs all round the promontory, save where little coves occasionally stretch in towards the land, and in stormy weather the waters of the Firth beat furiously against it. Ships breaking from their moorings at Greenock have frequently been dashed to pieces on these rocks; and on such a lee shore escape for any vessel in this hapless plight is almost impossible. On the west corner of the grounds stands the Ferry-house, formerly much frequented by travellers and cattle-dealers as being the almost only means of communication with Greenock and the opposite, shore. The ferry is still kept up, but the traffic is comparatively limited, and the ferryman ekes out his livelihood by pursuing the occupation of fisherman, and cultivating a small patch of land adjacent to the house. In stormy weather the passage across is sometimes attended with a considerable degree of peril, and lives have frequently been lost. Some years ago, on attempting to make the passage home one wintry night, the ferryman and his two sons perished when almost on shore, and the first objects that met the gaze of his anxious wife next morning were the dead bodies of her husband and sons lying on the beach, almost at the threshold of their own door, where they bad been cast up by the tide. The poor woman lost her reason under this sad bereavement, and though she survived some time afterwards, it was under the most distressing circumstances of mental derangement that can possibly be conceived. A somewhat kindred story, though of less melancholy end, is told of another ferryman who lived here some time, one Jacob Brown, a solitary individual of rather an eccentric turn of mind. During the great French war a boat containing a military band which was being conveyed from Greenock to a transport ship accidently upset, and the whole band perished. They were washed ashore subsequently near the ferry-house, and interred in the ground immediately behind it, now forming the kailyard. There they slumbered peacefully for many years save on the anniversary night of their death, when it was said the sounds of martial music was regularly heard echoing among the rocks around the lonely point. One night as Jacob was lying in bed he was awakened by an unwonted noise within and around his hoose; on starting up, his heart quailed and his blood curdled as he saw a whole line of thin airy figures all arrayed in military garb, but through whom the pale moonbeams flitted, perched on the top of a dyke, and playing the Dead March in Saul, opposite his window. The music was weird and unearthly in sound, and the deep notes of the huge trombone as it stretched occasionally till it touched the window of Jacob’s room, and the hollow rumble of the drum, froze every drop of blood in his veins. Jacob could not cry, he could not move, he had not even strength to utter an inward prayer, but lay there, spell-bound, staring at the spectral band, till unconsciousness happily released him. When he came to his senses the next morning the band was gone, the sun shining brightly on the waters, and on the graves of the drowned musicians, all undisturbed by their midnight orgies; but Jacob made his escape from the cottage with all convenient despatch, and no persuasion could induce him again to set foot in it, nor till his death did he cease to believe in the reality of the ghostly company who that night serenaded him.

On both sides of the narrow isthmus, connecting Ardmore with the mainland, the tide ebbs a long way, leaving a great tract of sand and marine deposit. These tracts, in the hands of any enterprising party, could easily be embanked and much valuable land reclaimed, and we understand such an operation has been for some time projected. The beauty of the hill and neighbourhood would be greatly increased were this scheme carried out. In the meantime these banks are, in winter, the haunts of various tribes of wild fowls, and are resorted to by numerous sportsmen—professional and amateur. The birds seem to find food amongst the marine grasses and crustacea with which the banks abound, and though not nearly so numerous as they were twenty or thirty years ago, before steam navigation existed to the extent it now does on the river, there are still large quantities found resorting to them each winter. Tribes of wild duck first make their appearance about the end of October, at first in small families, gradually increasing as winter advances, into large and compact flocks. The teal, sheldrake, and common mossduck first appear on the approach of frost or stormy weather, and later in the season flocks of Norwegian duck and barnacle haunt the bays and creeks. At ebb tide the sands at these and various other favourite feeding grounds are almost covered with curlew, gray and golden plovers, and small sand larks.

On returning to the highway again, the tourist passes on the right hand the properties of Ardarden and Brooks, and on the left Mollandhu. The last was a mortification half a century since to the poor of a certain name born within the parish. It then was of comparatively little value, but now yields a high rent. As the poor entitled to receive the benefit were exceedingly few in number, and gradually diminishing, the Parochial Board of Cardross parish some years since raised the question whether they were not the proper administrators of the fund, and after a good deal of litigation, it was ultimately decided in their favour. The fund is more beneficially applied than it could have been under the former arrangement. A beautiful avenue of trees overarches the road as it passes Geilston, and supplies a cool and shady walk of about a quarter of a mile in length. The mansion-house of Geilston stands at a little distance off the road on the left side, and can only be partially seen from it. The scenery in the neighbourhood of the house is very fine. Behind it flows the Geilston Burn, which rises in the moor some miles above. On this burn are some pretty bits of rock and waterfall for the pencil of the artist; and were it not that its course is through very broken and rugged ground, it would be more frequently visited. A little beyond Geilston stands the village of Cardross—a very ancient village, consisting of some dozen of houses, a couple of inns, picturesque parish church, and un-pretending Free Church meeting-house. The population of the village probably does not exceed fifty, and cannot have increased within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. It lies in a sheltered warm situation. There are many beautiful walks in the neighbourhood, and the roads being light and gravelly, are always dry and pleasant. There are not many points of interest connected with it likely to attract the traveller out of the regular road. The ruins of an old church and churchyard a little way to the north, and the remains of Kilmahew Castle, are the two objects usually pointed out as worthy of examination. The last is boldly claimed as once a residence of King Robert Bruce, and the place of his death, by patriotic Cardross folk, but an examination of the place generally assures the visitor that whatever other historical interest it may possess, it can hardly be invested with this. It is more than probable another castle once existing some two miles nearer Dumbarton, on the farm called Castlehill, was the residence of our Scottish king, and the place where he breathed his last, and Mr. Irving’s recent history of Dumbartonshire confirms us in this impression. What an affecting sight it must have been to have seen that lionhearted old king bowed down by disease and premature age sunning himself on the fair Clyde, or in view of his coming end, detailing to his nobles and barons those wise and prudential measures for the protection and preservation of a kingdom lying so near his heart, and which had cost him such a struggle to preserve! and than the record of his death here, there is scarcely a more touching incident in all Scottish history. How he bequeaths to his tried and noble friend the Douglas—whose friendship had been of that rare and enduring character which no misfortune or disaster could diminish—his heart, when it should beat no more; and enjoins him to bear it to Jerusalem to fulfil his vow, in place of his body; and how, as every schoolboy knows, the Douglas, old though he was, undertook the commission, and afterwards tossing the golden casket containing that precious heart into the midst of the Saracen host, perished in following it. There was a sincere piety in all this which we must not judge of or measure by the standard of our own times, and which ignorance or bigotry alone would censure. In Scottish history there are but two epochs that relieve it from a dry record of barbarism—of traitorous nobles and an oppressed people—the record of our struggle for national independence, and the Reformation. With the former of these Cardross, as we have seen, is intimately associated, and will ever remain a place of note, insignificant though it otherwise be, as connected with the life and death of a true king. In the parish of Cardross the grandfather of the historian, Macaulay, was minister during a considerable period of his life. Another distinguished historian and novelist, Tobias Smollett, was born in it, and near the place of his nativity at Renton a relative has erected a column to his memory, on which a familiar Latin inscription records the virtues and life of the author of Roderick Random.