SCOTLAND. 



Blackness Castles are still kept in repair at the 

 public expense, and serve as= barracks for foot- 

 soldiers. 



CHIEF CITIES, TOWNS, PORTS, ETC. 



Edtnbtirgh, the capital, is situated in the county 

 of the same name, on a cluster of eminences, 

 distant between i and 3 miles from the Firth of 

 Forth. The city is composed of two principal 

 parts the Old and New Towns : the former 

 being built on a long narrow eminence gently 

 rising towards the west, where it terminates in 

 a lofty and abrupt rock, on which the castle is 

 situated ; while the latter occupies lower ground 

 towards the north. The town is universally built 

 of a fair sandstone, which retains its original 

 colour in the newer parts of the town, and in the 

 best public buildings, and forms one of the most 

 striking features of Edinburgh. The New Town 

 is laid out on a regular plan of rectangular streets 

 and squares, exhibiting in general much architec- 

 tural elegance. Between the Old and New Towns, 

 and between various sections of the New Town 

 itself, as well as in the centres of the principal 

 squares, there are gardens laid out in the modern 

 style, forming delightful places of recreation. It 

 is chiefly owing to the unequal ground on which 

 Edinburgh is situated, the massive elegance and 

 regularity of its buildings, the intermixture of 

 ornamental pleasure-ground, and the picturesque 

 hills immediately adjacent, whence distant and 

 extensive prospects are commanded, that this 

 city makes so great an impression on most 

 strangers. 



Formerly the seat of the government of the 

 country, Edinburgh is still that of the supreme 

 law-courts and of a flourishing university. It is 

 also to a great extent a city of residence, not only 

 for persons connected with the country, but for 

 strangers desirous of enjoying a society of mode- 

 rate habits, and the benefits of education for their 

 children. Its leading classes are thus composed 

 of legal practitioners, learned persons, and families 

 in independent circumstances. It is only in a 

 small degree a manufacturing town, the principal 

 trade being the brewing of ale (for which the town 

 is celebrated). The leading periodical publica- 

 tions are Blackwood's Magazine and Chambers's 

 Journal. The Edinburgh Review is now pub- 

 lished in London. The leading daily paper is the 

 Scotsman, a journal of Liberal principles. There 

 are besides several medical, philosophical, and 

 legal journals. The Register Houses in Princes 

 Street contain the historical and legal records of 

 the country. A striking feature in the city and 

 its neighbourhood is the number of its schools 

 and educational institutions. Among the most 

 famous of the latter are George Heriot'a and 

 Donaldson's Hospitals. The latter is a palatial 

 building, as also Fettes College. The city is now 

 the centre of the Scottish railway traffic, having 

 lines and telegraphs communicating with all 

 parts of the island. Tramways are laid in 

 the main streets, and a suburban railway con- 

 nects the principal suburbs. 



Amongst the remarkable objects in the city, the 

 most striking is the Castle, a large fortress roman- 

 tically situated on the summit of a mass of igneous 

 rock, between 200 and 300 feet in perpendicular 

 height It contains, besides various batteries and 



other fortifications, a modern barrack, in which 

 a foot-regiment is usually quartered. In a well- 

 protected room are shewn the crown, sceptre, 

 mace, and sword which formed the regalia of the 

 Scottish line of princes. An apartment is also 

 shewn in which Queen Mary was delivered of her 

 son James VI. The Courts of Law are situated 

 in the centre of the Old Town, and are composed 

 of a great hall, formerly the meeting-place of the 

 Scottish Parliament, rooms for the two divisions 

 of the civil court and for the lords-ordinary, a 

 room for the High Court of Justiciary (supreme 

 criminal court), and other accommodations. The 

 extensive libraries belonging respectively to the 

 Advocates (barristers) and Writers to the Signet 

 (solicitors) are adjacent. Holyrood-house, the 

 palace of the Scottish kings, is situated at the 

 lower extremity of the principal street of the Old 

 Town. The oldest part is a mass of building 

 erected by James V. containing the presence- 

 chamber, bedroom, and other apartments used 

 by Queen Mary, with some of the original furni- 

 ture ; as also a gallery, furnished with (generally 

 imaginary) portraits of the kings of Scotland. 

 The apartments of the queen are to be regarded 

 with no ordinary interest, both as furnishing a 

 curious and faithful memorial of the domestic 

 accommodations of a princess of the sixteenth 

 century, and as the scene of the murder of David 

 Riccio. Another part of the building, erected in 

 the reign of Charles II. contains the apartments 

 used by George IV. for his levde in 1822, and a 

 suite of rooms which furnished accommodation to 

 Charles X. of France and his family during the 

 years 1831-33. Closely adjoining to the palace are 

 the ruins of a Gothic church, originally that of the 

 Abbey of Holyrood, and latterly a chapel-royal. 



The College is a large modern quadrangular 

 building, in the southern quarter of the city. It 

 contains class-rooms for the professors, and a library 

 of splendid proportions. The university is dis- 

 tinguished as a school of medicine, for which new 

 buildings have been erected in Teviot Row. The 

 Infirmary, Museum of Science and Art, Heriot- 

 Watt College, and Free Library (in progress 1888) 

 are the other chief buildings in the south side. 



' Every true Scotsman,' says Alexander Smith, 

 'believes Edinburgh to be the most picturesque 

 city in the world. . . . The finest view from the 

 interior is obtained from the corner of St Andrew's 

 Street (South) looking west. Straight before you, 

 the Mound crosses the valley, bearing the white 

 Academy buildings ; beyond, the castle lifts, from 

 grassy slopes and billows of summer foliage, its 

 weather-stained towers and fortifications, the 

 Half-moon Battery giving the folds of its standard 

 to the wind. Living in Edinburgh, there abides, 

 above all things, a sense of its beauty hill, crag, 

 castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque 

 ridge of the Old Town, the squares and terraces 

 of the New these things once seen are not to 

 be forgotten. The quick life of to-day sounding 

 around the relics of antiquity, and overshadowed 

 by the august traditions of a kingdom, make 

 residence in Edinburgh more impressive than 

 residence in any other British city. . . . What a 

 poem is that Princes Street ! The puppets of the 

 busy, many-coloured hour move about on its 

 pavement ; while across the ravine, time has 

 piled up the Old Town, ridge on ridge, gray as 

 a rocky coast washed and worn by the foam of 



3 253 



