CHAPTER XXIII. RETURN TO GREAT BRITAIN. The freedom of the city of Edinburgh was presented to General Grant on the 31st of August. He left London in a Pullman car. On the way from London - four hundred miles the scenery was exceedingly attractive. All through England and in the south of Scotland, the country is a perfect garden, and only when you get among the chilly hills, valleys and crags of northern Scotland, do you feel that you are getting into the open country. What a pity that there are no forests to cover these beautiful and historic mountains, where in centuries gone by the horns of the leaders summoned the clans to bloody work! The reception given to General Grant as each station. was reached, was whole-souled and fully meant hospitality. At Carlisle the dinner stopping-place-at Galashiels, Melrose, Harwick, and a number of smaller towns in Scotland, there were expressions of joy and enthusiasm that reminded one of the railroad receptions that General Grant gets at the towns of Illinois and Ohio. It seemed as though they knew him perfectly well-his face, his history, etc.- for they recognized him everywhere, and demanded as much handshaking as could be done in the limited time the train was to stay. Then the cheers and hurrahs always sounded in the distance above the whistle of the locomotive. Mrs. Grant was quite cheerful and talkative. She looked very much better than when she left Washington, though she said she was always in good health there. Washington has a slightly malarial atmosphere, and the complexion of a Washingtonian changes for the better after a trip to Europe. She enjoyed her European trip. She said her lines of association there had always fallen in pleasant places, and that she had been greatly pleased with every acquaintance she made in Europe. Mrs. Grant is a quiet, rather reserved lady, but one who impresses her associates by her kind nature, her broad views upon the subject under discussion, be it commonplace or important, and her sensible ideas of life. She sprang from one of the best families of the Mississippi Valley, well known and highly respected since a hundred years and more ago, and her early training was not lost. All the ladies who met her and became her acquaintances at the White House, loved her, from first to last. The freedom of the city of Edinburgh was presented to ex-President Grant by Lord Provost Sir James Falshaw, in Free Assembly Hall, two thousand persons being present. In reply to the Lord Provost's speech, General Grant said: "I am so filled with emotion that I scarcely know how to thank you for the honor conferred upon me by making me a burgess of this ancient city of Edinburgh. I feel that it is a great compliment to me and to my country. Had I the proper eloquence, I might dwell somewhat on the history of the great men you have produced, on the numerous citizens of this city and of Scotland who have gone to America, and the record they have made. We are proud of Scotchmen as citizens of America. They make good citizens of our country, and they find it profitable to themselves. I again thank you for the honor conferred upon me." On September 1st, General Grant and party visited Tay Bridge. One of the most striking features of the view obtained from the deck of the little steamer is that of the bridge itself, which, as seen from some little distance, combines massiveness with airiness of structure, impressing one even more than the almost fairy-like span of the Menai tubular bridge, or the larger and equally reputed, though perhaps less elegant, viaduct across the Hollandsche Diep. A few minutes' sailing brought the party to Wormi Pier, on the south side of the river, and immediately under the first span of Mr. Bouch's grand structure. At this place Admiral Maitland Dougal, Mr. Matthew McDougal, United States Consul at Dundee, and ex-Provost Ewan, Dundee, were in waiting to do honor to the General, not to speak of a numerous concourse of the public, comprising seemingly most of the workmen connected with the bridge, as well as many persons from the neighboring villages. After landing, General Grant, Mrs. Grant and some others were conducted to one of the rooms in the contractor's offices, where Mr. Grothe, the resident engineer, explained, with the aid of models and diagrams, the manner in which the large piers of the bridge were constructed, mentioning first that the bridge was designed on what is known as the lattice-girder principle, and then stating that the piers were built on shore, floated out between two barges to the desired position in the river, sunk to a suitable foundation, and then brought up to high-water mark. By means of another working model, the manner in which the girders. were transported from the shore was illustrated, it being shown that the tide was the motive power by which masses of iron work weighing as much as two hundred tons were moved. The method by which these girders were raised from the river to the required height of eighty-eight feet above high-water mark, through the agency of hydraulic apparatus, was also explained. Describing the work generally, Mr. Grothe said there were in all eighty-five spans, thirteen of which, over the navigable part of the river, were each two hundred and |