The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-17 00:00:00

THE BRAEMAR GATHERING.

CASTLETOWN OF BRAEMAR, FRIDAY.--Yesterday,
this old Highland village presented an unusual asptct
of activity, owing to the annual " Braemar Gather.
ing" having been appointed to take place in the
vicinity of the old castle, celebrated in history as the
spot where the Earl of Mar displayed his standard in
1715. Since her Majesty selected Balmoral as her
" Highland home," this "gathering" has assumed a
more interesting feature than formerly, her Majesty
and the Court having graced it by their presence.
When her Majesty was seated the scene was re-
markably striking and grand. The castle stands on a
platform on the banks of the Dee, surrounded by an
amphitheatre of mountains, On the south the wild
chain of the Lochnagar range towers in rugged
grandeur, the waters of the Garwalt opening a pass
which leads through the Spittal of Glenshee ; on the
west the forest of Mar stretches far up the valley of
Glentilt, the scene being broken by endless screens of
the wild granite range which here rises up in majestic
grandeur ; on the north the Cairngorum mountains
tower above the clouds, their tops being covered with
eternal snow, while the background is filled in by
the more pastoral scenery of the property of Inver-
cauld.

The games commenced by putting the stone and
throwing the hammer, when one sturdy Highlander
distanced all competitors by throwing a 281 b. stone
26 feet, while another astonished many by throwing a
161 b. hammer a distance of 47 feet. Then followed
tossing the caber, and running a foot race up the face
of a mountain, where one would imagine that a deer
alone could climb to the summit. Nineteen men
started in this contest, and one of Prince Albert's
gillies gained the winning post in six minutes, the
distance being fully a quarter of a mile.
The royal party were then conducted to the hall
of the castle, to witness the sword dance, and a va-
riety of Highland reels. The hall was splendidly
decorated for the occasion with evergreens, amongst
which were interspersed the royal initials. The
first dance was a reel, in which several Highlanders
displayed great nimbleness of foot; them followed the
sword dance, which was danced by three athletic
young men successively, and by Master John Ar-
thur Farquharson, one of the Farquharson's boys,
who distanced all the others ; then came the strath-
speys and the Higland fling to the music of the bag-
pipes, her Majesty evidently taking great delight in
the whole performance.

HER MAJESTY'S ASCENT OF BEN-NA•
BOURD.

The Perth Courier gives the following account of
this incident :—" Ben-na-Bourd is a large rugged
mountain on the verge of the Cairngorum range,'
rising to the height of 3,900 feet above the level of
the sea, and though sloping away on two sides in the
direction of Speyside and Cairngorum, presents on the
opposite direction an unbroken chain of almost perpen-
dicular precipices, with the exception of a neck or belt
that connects it with its brother mountain, Ben A'an
(literally the bill or mountain of the waters), proba-
bly so called from the fact of the Gairn, the Don, and
the principal tributaries of the Spey, rising in its hol-
lows. Friday being the day chosen for the ascent,
the Queen and Prince Albert, accompanied by the
eldest son of Prince Leiningen and the Marchioness
of Douro, and attended by a few gillies, left Balmoral
at an early hour in the forenoon, and drove up the
south side of the Dee till they reached the bridge of
Invercauld. Here the royal party crossed the river, and
after passing up the opposite side fora couple of miles,
alighted from their carriages at the Slogan Burn
They then mounted ponies and ascended the Slogan
by an excellent pony track, which carried them up
a shoulder of the bill to within about a mile of the
top; but as the mountain from this point is, for the
most part, very steep and rugged, the ponies were of
no further use, and the party started on foot. During
the toilsome ascent her Majesty proved herself to be
a first-rate pedestrian, and had the advantage over
Prince Albert in more than one contest for superi-
ority in surmounting the more rugged points, where
the hands perform fully as important a part of the lo-
comotion as the feet, and eventually the Queen
reached the summit the first of the party. Ben-na-
bourd is principally celebrated for the very magnifi-
cent prospect it commands of the various chains of
mountains throughout the Highlands, and although
the view over the low country is not very extensive,
yet by the help of such a telescope as the deerstalkers
use, a person can distinctly see the ships upon the
Firth at Inverness, and even count the windows of
some of the farmhouses in Ross-shire. The
summit of the mountain is almost void of vege-
tation, having the peculiar weather-beaten ap-
pearance common to our Scotch mountains
of like elevation. The conies near the top
are also famous for their veins of beautiful rock
crystals with which we are more familiar as Cairn-
gorum stones.' We may mention that while the
royal party were in search of specimens of these
stones, Prince Albert had the good fortune to pick up
what turned out to be not merely a specimen but an
excellent piece of Cairngorum, fully more than suffi-
cient to make a pretty large brooch, and worth two
or three days toil to a Cairngorum digger. The
Queen conversed very freely with the guides and
Billies about her, and appeared to take great interest
in the scene, inquiring the names of many hills and
places round about; and as exemplifying the interest
her Majesty also takes in the legends and traditions of
the country, it may be worth while mentioning that
while ascending the Slogan, she requested one of the
guides to point out the place where one of the earliest
of the Farquharsons of Invercauld Flood ladh
Mhor') was born, stating that she was aware it was
somewhere in the glen. After the party had lunched
at the 'sappers and miners' cairn at the top, her
Majesty took a drink from a clear spring well at the
top of the ' snowy corrie,' and shortly after the royal
strangers left the summit, and by six o'clock had
safely descended from by far the wildest and sternest
region of the Highlands her Majesty had yet trod."

COURT CIRCULAR.
BALMORAL, SEPT. 14.
Her Majesty went out walking this morning.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert went out
shooting.
In the afternooe her Majesty, accompanied by the
Princess Royal and Princess Alice, drove in an open
carriage.
The dinner party this evening will include her
Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, his Serene
Highness the Prince of Leiningen, Lady Augusta
Bruce, Lord James Murray, Baroness Spetb, and Sir
Alexander and Lady Dolt

Dispatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-
office from the Governor of Canada, and also from
the Governors of the other North American Colonies.

REMOVAL OF THE OLD TELEGRAPH AND SEMA.
PHORE AT THE ADMIRALTY.—IRStaDt communication with
the outposts by the electric wires having superseded the old
telegraphic system of conveying orders, &c., the building
erected on the south-west corner of the Admiralty, together
with the modern semaphore (altogether an unsightly board),
have been taken down, and in its place the Admiralty flag
floats at the top of the establishment. The building at the
corner was erected in the year 1794, for setting up the first
telegraph used in this country, and which communicated to
the dockyard at Chatham. It was the old-fashioned one,
with six shutters, each divided into three parts. The build-
ing was increased in 1796, and extra shutter telegraphs were
put up, communicating to Portsmouth and Plymouth. To
the latter place, from the difficulty of obtaining proper eleva-
tions, and in order to avoid as much as possible the London
fogs and thick atmosphere, the line was of necessity taken to
a hill near Barnet, and thence to St. Albans and Dunstable,
and then the stations were worked back from the north to
westward. All these, however, having been superseded by
(he electric wires, and the old telegraphs and semaphores
having fallen into desuetude, the officers in charge have been
paid oil, and the stations and their annual costs have been
abandoned.

THE HON. W. 0. STANLEY, M.P.—We are happy
to state that our respected Member has recovered from the
effects of his late accident, and is now convalescent.—Chester
Chronicle.