PRINCES STREET GARDENS 



EDINBURGH 



RAVELLERS have been heard to utter 

 unkind things about the climate of 

 Edinburgh, which has been much the 

 same, I suppose, for the last thousand 

 years ; and those who have not visited 

 the city may have been deterred from doing so by its 

 by-name of "Auld Reekie," which its inhabitants do 

 not resent, albeit that of the " Modern Athens " may 

 be more alluring. In truth, both the climate and the 

 atmosphere are compatible with horticulture of a very 

 high class; for the first is no worse than the rest 

 of the east coast, where there is no dearth of fruits 

 and of flowers, and the second is singularly free from 

 smoke for a town of 317,459 inhabitants. Edinburgh 

 earned its name of Auld Reekie from no internal 

 murkiness; it was conferred by a famous golfer of 

 the eighteenth century, James Durham of Largo, 

 who, from his home in Fife, used to watch the 

 chimneys of the capital, and, as Robert Chambers 

 records, " was in the habit of regulating the time of 

 evening worship by the appearance of the smoke of 

 Edinburgh. When it increased in density, in conse- 



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