THE country lying east of Edinburgh and Leith, which is bounded on the south by the Pentlands and Lammermoors, and which stretches as far as Dunbar, along the southward shore of what Victor Hugo calls, in a moment of inexplicable aberration, "La cin-quiéme de la quatriéme," or Firth of Forth, is one of the most interesting parts of Scotland. From the agricultural point of view it is one of the richest, and the smiling and prosperous aspect of its well-tilled fields, its acres of waving grain or green-shawed turnips, its comfortable farm-houses, red-tiled, and encircled with sheltering trees and well-filled stackyards, amply justify its title to be called the "Garden of Scotland."

In the light of history, no Scottish district is richer in suggestion, or more stimulating to the imagination, and Scott and Stevenson, who knew and loved it well, have laid in it the scenes of some of their most enthralling romances.

Standing on Gullane hill, under one's eye lies the arena on which many of the most striking events of Scottish history were enacted, and the landscape seems peopled with the great actors who played their parts in it. The rock of Edinburgh, with Arthurseat for foreground, is visible on the western sky-line, and the strath between the Pentlands and the Forth was the channel, up and down which ebbed and flowed for many centuries, the tide of invasion and war. Along here, never to return, passed James the Fourth, with the flower of Scottish chivalry, to fatal Flodden Field. Close by also, in the '45, marched Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Highlanders, flushed with the victory of Preston-pans. From this hill one could have seen the smoke of battle. Tantallon, the stronghold of the Black Douglasses, is but a mile or two away, on the rocks beyond North Berwick, while many a ruined tower and "ancient forta-lice," dotted over the plain, speaks eloquently of the stirring times of forays, and harryings, and Border warfare.

Turning seawards the prospect is no less rich in romantic suggestion.

" The boat rocks at the pier 0' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick Law, And I maun leave thee Bonnie Mary."

From Leith to the Berwick Law and the Bass, the waters of the Forth lie spread before the spectator. The Isle of May, Fidra, Craigleith, the Lamb, the Bass Rock, and other islands lie, gem-like, on its bosom, and in the far distance the shores of the kingdom of Fife, studded with villages, can be descried, backed by the Ochils and Lomonds and the Highlands of Perthshire.

Up and down this waterway what strange and ghostly pageants seem to pass ! Along here, in the grey dawn of Western civilisation, came the Roman galleys, with their strenuous crews, marvelling greatly at the wildness of the land and the uncouthness of the barbarians who inhabited it. Little recked these bold Romans of a time coming, when those barbarians should bridge this wide water with iron, and when their own degenerate descendants would eke out a precarious livelihood amongst them as itinerant musicians and vendors of ice-cream!

So does the whirligig of time bring about its revenges.

Up here, too, passed Mary Stuart, fresh from the gaiety and light-heartedness of France, to take up, under Knox's stern and ascetic eye, the thread of her passionate and tragic reign. Here, for decades, passed to and fro all the statecraft, the learning and commerce of France and the Low Countries; and "furth of Scotland" from these sandy shores, sailed many a poor exile, either for his own or his country's good.

But the stirring and romantic memories of Scottish history which the scene inspires, though more than sufficient, in themselves, to attract and arrest the interest of the passer-by, are but a small part, after all, of the delights of this countryside. The climate is dry and bracing to a superlative degree. At North Berwick, Dunbar, Gullane, and indeed at almost any point along the coast, excellent sea-bathing is to be had, while the roads, either for walking, bicycling, or driving, are unsurpassed, both in quality and in the beauty of the scenery through which they pass.

The great attraction of the district, however, has yet to be named. It is Golf. All along the coast, untouched by the invading ploughshare, have been left stretches of the most beautiful golfing country in the world. Turf of exceptional closeness and elasticity, natural sand bunkers of endless shape and variety, sierras of benty dunes and saharas of sand, alternating with oases of verdure, make the place a veritable golfer's paradise. Here, surely, if anywhere, must have been the home of our first golfing parents, for nowhere else in the world is the golfing prospect so expansive and enticing, nowhere does the pursuit of the game seem so inevitable.

And yet, strange as it may appear, the historical records of golf are comparatively silent on its practice in this favoured land. Whether the repressive legislation of the Puritans, or the oft-quoted enactment whereby golf was to be "utterly cryit down and nocht usit," in order that the people might no longer neglect the practice and use of arms, had the effect of killing the game for the time, even in its obvious and natural home; or whether it struggled on, like smuggling, in precarious and secret existence through the centuries, there is but scant reference to the game in any records of the district, till about thirty years ago. From sundry antediluvian drivers and prehistoric sand-irons, however, now in the possession of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants, which it has been the writer's privilege to see and handle, it seems probable that the latter represents the true state of the case. A drastic legal measure, the object of which was obviously the stamping out of the game, would be certain to be accompanied by a house-to-house visitation, and by the confiscation and destruction of all golfing implements. What golfer, worthy of the name, to-day, if such a law were to be enforced, would not hide his cherished clubs in bunker or whin bush, and pursue his game when the eye of the law was for the moment directed elsewhere? And this is no doubt what our golfing fathers did in East Lothian. The sudden outbreak of golf that occurred here about thirty years ago was but a Renascence, not a new creation. There, were the ancient weapons to suggest the game, there, was the green; and the people, in whose veins the golfing instinct ran strong, suddenly realised that they might once more play golf, and that no man should make them afraid. And play they did. North Berwick, itself a royal burgh, led the van in this revival of the royal and ancient game, and the farmers of the district reached down and furbished up their ancient sand-irons, and disputed the possession of the links, once more, with the rabbits and "pees-weeps," at Archerfield, Gullane, and Luffness.