CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



centuries ; peaked and jagged by gable and roof ; 

 windowed from basement to cope ; the whole 

 surmounted by St Giles' airy crown. The New is 

 there looking at the Old. Two times are brought 

 face to face, and are yet separated by a thousand 

 years. Wonderful on winter nights, when the 

 gully is filled with darkness, and out of it rises, 

 against the sombre blue, and the frosty stars, that 

 mass and bulwark of gloom, pierced and quiver- 

 ing with innumerable lights. . . . Finer still, to 

 place one's self near the Burns Monument, and 

 look towards the castle. It is more astonishing than 

 an Eastern dream. A city rises up before you, 



Eainted by fire on night High in air, a bridge of 

 ghts leaps the chasm ; a few emerald lamps, like 

 glow-worms, are moving silently about in the 

 railway station below ; a solitary crimson one is 

 at rest That ridged and chimneyed bulk of 

 blackness, with splendour bursting out at every 

 pore, is the wonderful Old Town, where Scottish 

 history mainly transacted itself; while opposite, 

 the modern Princes Street is blazing throughout 

 its length. . . . From George Street, which crowns 

 the ridge, the eye is led down sweeping streets of 

 stately architecture, to the villas and woods that 

 fill the lower ground and fringe the shore ; to the 

 bright azure belt of the Forth, with its smoking 

 steamer or its creeping sail ; beyond, to the shores 

 of Fife, soft, blue, and flecked with fleeting 

 shadows, in the keen, clear light of spring, dark 

 purple in the summer heat, tarnished gold in the 

 autumn haze ; and farther away still, just dis- 

 tinguishable on the pale sky, the crest of some 

 distant peak, carrying the imagination into the 

 illimitable world. Residence in Edinburgh is an 

 education in itself. Its beauty refines one, like 

 being in love. Nothing can stale its infinite 

 variety. From a historical and picturesque point 

 of view, the Old Town is the most interesting part 

 of Edinburgh, and the great street running from 

 the castle to Holyrood the Lawnmarket, High 

 Street, and Canongate is the most interesting 

 part of the Old Town. In that street, the houses 

 preserve their ancient appearance ; they climb 

 heavenward, story upon story, with outside stairs 

 and wooden panellings, all strangely peaked and 

 gabled. With the exception of the inhabitants, 

 who exist amidst squalor, and filth, and evil 

 smells, undeniably modern, everything in this 

 long street breathes of the antique world. If you 

 penetrate the narrow wynds, that run at right 

 angles from it, you see traces of ancient gardens. 

 Occasionally the original names are retained, and 

 they touch the visitor pathetically, like the scent 

 of long withered flowers. Old armorial bearings 

 may yet be traced above the doorways. Two 

 centuries ago, fair eyes looked down from yonder 

 window, now in possession of a drunken Irish- 

 woman. If we but knew it, every crazy tenement 

 has its tragic story ; every crumbling wall could 

 its tale unfold. The Canongate is Scottish 

 history fossilised. What ghosts of kings and 

 queens walk there T What strifes of steel-clad 

 nobles ! What wretches borne along in the sight 

 of peopled windows to the grim embrace of the 

 " Maiden ! " What hurrying of burgesses to man 

 the walls at the approach of the Southron ! What 

 lamentations over disastrous battle-days! James 

 rode up this 'street on his way to Flodden. Mon- 

 trose was dragged up hither on a hurdle. . . . Jenny 

 Geddes flung her stool at the priest in yonder 



254 



church. John Knox came up here to his house, after 

 his interview with Mary at Holyrood grim and 

 stern, unmelted by the tears of a queen. . . . The 

 Canongate once seen is never to be forgotten : 

 nobles, grave senators, jovial lawyers once had their 

 abode here. In the low- roofed rooms, half-way to 

 the stars, philosophers talked, wits coruscated, 

 and gallant young fellows, sowing wild-oats in the 

 middle of last century, wore rapiers and lace 

 ruffles, and drunk claret jovially out of silver 

 stoups. In every room a minuet has been walked, 

 while chairmen and linkmen clustered on the 

 pavement beneath. But the Canongate has 

 fallen from its high estate whisky has sup- 

 planted claret. Nobility has fled and squalor 

 taken possession. Wild, naked children swarm 

 round every door-step. Ruffians lounge about 

 the mouths of the wynds. Female faces worthy 

 of the Inferno look down from broken windows. 

 Riots are frequent ; and drunken mothers reel 

 past, scolding white atomies of children that nestle 

 wailing in their bosoms little wretches to whom 

 death were the greatest boon ; and when evening 

 falls, and the lamps are lit, there is a sudden 

 hubbub and crowd of people, and presently, from 

 its midst, emerge a couple of policemen and a 

 barrow, with a poor, half-clad, tipsy woman, from 

 the sister island, crouching upon it, her hair hang- 

 ing loose about her face, her hands quivering with 

 impotent rage, and her tongue wild with curses ; 

 attended by small boys, who bait her with taunts 

 and nicknames, and who appreciate the comic 

 element which so strangely underlies the horrible 

 sight.' Many of these foul closes and 'wynds,' 

 here so vividly painted, have of recent years been 

 swept away, under powers given to the town 

 council by the City Improvement Act. The 

 population of Edinburgh and Leith was, in 1811, 

 101,492; in 1881, it was 295,487. Edinburgh 

 City (since 1885) returns four members to parlia- 

 ment ; the university, with that of St Andrews, 

 returns another. 



Leith, the seaport of Edinburgh, is situated 

 at the mouth of the Water of Leith, a polluted 

 and unwholesome stream, which has been im- 

 proved, but by no means made perfect, by the 

 expensive drainage scheme of 1864. The harbour 

 of Leith, which has frequently been improved, now 

 admits vessels of 2000 tons. In 1863, the Leith 

 Dock Commissioners obtained a grant of .223,000 

 for construction of new works. These include a 

 great reclamation embankment on the east sands ; 

 a wet dock of nearly eleven acres, with entrance 

 basin of about two acres, and lock of 350 by 60 

 feet. The embankment is about 350 long, in- 

 closing 36 acres. The newdock was opened in 1881. 

 The customs revenue for 1880 was ,290,570. 



St Andrews. Few places in Scotland are of 

 greater historical interest than St Andrews. It 

 was constituted a royal burgh by David I. Part 

 of the wall built by Prior John Hepburn in 1516 

 still remains. From the top of one of its towers, 

 St Regulus, there is a fine view of the Bell Rock, 

 bay, city, and county, with the ruins of the once 

 formidable castle of Cardinal Beaton, the scene 

 of his cruelties and murder. There is also to be 

 seen a specimen of the bottle-shaped dungeon, 

 a sight to make one shudder at the ingenuity of 

 human cruelty. The university was founded in 

 1411. Madras College was founded and endowed 

 by the late Dr Bell in 1832. St Andrews is the 





