A Jolly Party of Americans—Dim-Eyed Pilgrim—Young Goslings—An American Goose Ranch—Birthplace of Robert Pollok and Mary Queen of Scots—The Boston of Europe—Home of Illustrious Men—A Monument to the Author—Monument to Sir Walter Scott—Edinburgh Castle—Murdered and Head Placed on the Wall—Cromwell’s Siege—Stones of Power—A Dazzling Diadem—A Golden Collar—Baptized in Blood—Meeting American Friends. WE ARE now in Edinburgh; we have been here some days. On our way from Ayr, we fell in with a jolly party of American gentlemen. The eyes of one grey-haired brother in the crowd are somewhat dimmed with age, though he is unwilling to acknowledge it. As the train made a graceful curve around a mountain, we came into a large, green pasture where many sheep were grazing. Now, the people of this country feed their sheep on turnips—large, yellow turnips, with the tops cut off. While in this pasture, we saw, some seventy-five or a hundred yards from the road, a great quantity of these turnips scattered over the grass for sheep food. The dim-eyed pilgrim spied the yellow objects and, pointing to them, he enthusiastically exclaimed: “Oh, what a fine lot of young goslings!” Then he added, “There are the goslings, but where are the geese?” I explained that those objects he saw were not “goslings” but turnips, and suggested that the goose was on our train. Before we separated, the two parties became fast friends. We all agreed to throw in and buy our friend a farm, to be known, not as a turnip patch, but as “The American Goose Ranch,” and on this ranch we are to meet the first day of May of each year, to discuss vital questions and living issues pertaining to the life and character of “young goslings.” [Illustration: EDINBURGH.] Leaving the pasture, we passed the Moorhouse farm, where Robert Pollok, author of “The Course of Time,” was born, in 1798, two years after the death of Robert Burns. We came by Linlithgow, the birthplace of Queen Mary. The majestic ruins of its once proud palace are still standing on a green hillside near the town, as if to impress the passer-by with the mutability of all human greatness and all human grandeur.