CHAP, x.] NEWHAVEN. 423 



reader a tolerable idea of this interesting class of people; and 

 to suit my own convenience I will begin at the place where I 

 witnessed the marriage, for Newhaven, near Edinburgh " Our 

 Lady's Port of Grace" as it was originally named is the most 

 accessible of all fishing villages ; and, although it is not the 

 primitive place now that it was some thirty years ago, having 

 been considerably spoiled in its pieturesqueness by the en- 

 croachments of the modern architect, and the intrusion of 

 summer pleasure-seekers, it is still unique as the abode of a 

 peculiar people who keep up the social distinctiveness of the 

 place. How Newhaven and similar fishing colonies originated 

 there is no record ; it is said, however, that this particular 

 community was founded by King James III, who was 

 extremely anxious to extend the industrial resources of his 

 kingdom by the prosecution of the fisheries, and that to aid 

 him in this design he brought over a colony of foreigners to 



recapitulating the share she had on her wedding-day, that " the back of 

 her legs didna cour (recover) the lang reel for a month afterwards." 

 The dance movement is very curious. The dancers " reel, set, and cross, 

 and cleek," and change places in sucli a way as to take them by degrees 

 from the head of the dance to the foot, and back to the head again, and 

 so on, the whole being like the links of a chain when reeling. When 

 the couples are dancing, the lang reel o' Collieston looks like a seiies 

 of common Highland reels, and it is in the reeling that the peculiarity 

 and intricacy of indescribableness of the dance exists. This reel is 

 quite indispensable at marriages, and after it has been danced other 

 reels and dances are enjoyed and kept up with very great spirit 

 natural and imbibed ; and to see the lang reel o' Collieston danced on 

 the greensward under the blue canopy of heaven, on a sweet afternoon 

 in summer, is a treat worth going many miles to enjoy. Not only 

 would the eye enjoy a rare feast, but what with the sweet music of 

 the violin, the merry song of the lark in mid-heaven right overhead, 

 the ringing guffaws of the juvenile spectators, the clapping of hands, 

 and the loud hoochs or whoops of the dancing fishermen, all comming- 

 ling and commingled with the murmur of billows breaking among the 

 rocks, the ear would have a banquet of no ordinary kind nor of every- 

 day occurrence. Ban f shire Journal. 



