IT was mentioned among the incidents of the Queen's annual sojourn at Balmoral, about this time last year, that her Majesty had been at Glenmark, in the valley of the North Esk, which lies about fifteen miles south-east of Balmoral, on the other side of the Grampian hills, and had seen the monument erected by the Earl of Dalhousie to commemorate the visit of herself and her lamented husband, the late Prince Albert, to that very spot, on the 20th of September, 1861, just three months before his death. On that occasion, we find by reference to the Court chronicle of the time, her Majesty and the Prince Consort, with Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse, started from Balmoral at nine in the morning, and. leaving their carriage at the bridge of Muick, rode on ponies up the mountain road, over Mount Keen, and down the Ladder Burn, into Glenmark, where they were met by the Earl of Dalhousie, who had prepared for them a sumptuous luncheon at the Well. The Royal party afterwards dined with his Lordship at his mansion of Invermark, and spent the night at the village of Fettercairn, where a monument has since been built, in the form of a Gothic arch, an Illustration of which appeared in our Paper of the 21st of April last. It was designed by Mr. John Milne. The monument at Glenmark consists of a granite structure in the form of the ancient Scottish crown, supported by pillars or buttresses meeting in an arch over the well, with an inscription recording the late when her Majesty and the Prince were there five years ago, and with the couplet
Rest, traveller, in this lonely scene,
And drink, and pray for Scotland's Queen,
Victoria.
Our Illustration of the Well is from a photograph by Mr. James Valentine, of Dundee, one of a series of twenty photographs which were presented by him to the Queen, in an album compiled for her Majesty, "In Memoriam of 1861."
