"My friends, we are delighted with your city, what we have seen of it--we have seen nothing so handsome before--we will try to please you with some more of our dances, and then we will be happy to shake hands with you. ('_How, how, how!_') "This is all I have to say now." (Great applause.) We were now in the most beautiful city in the kingdom, if not one of the most beautiful in the world; and the Indians, as well as ourselves, observed the difference in the manners and appearance of the people. The Indians had been pleased with their reception in the evening, and, in their drive during the day, had been excited by the inviting scenery overtowering the city,--the castle, with its "big gun," gaping over the town--the _Salisbury Crag_, and _Arthur's Seat_--all of which places they were to visit on that day; and, having swallowed their breakfasts and taken their seats in their carriage, seemed to have entered upon a new world of amusement. Their views from, and runs over, these towering peaks afforded them great amusement; and the castle, with its crown of Robert Bruce, and other insignia of royalty--its mammouth gun, and the little room in which King James I. of England was born; and in Holyrood House,--the blood of Rizzio upon the floor, and the bed in which Queen Mary had slept--were all subjects of new and fresh excitement to them. Nor was their amusement less whilst they were riding through the streets, at the constant variety and sudden contrasts--from the low and poverty-stricken rabble of High-street and its vicinity, to the modern and splendid sections of the city--of crossing high bridges over gardens, instead of rivers; of houses built upon the sides of the hills and on rocks; and many other amusing things that they talked about when they got back. To Mr. Melody and Jeffrey also, and to Daniel, all these scenes were new; and the Indians, therefore, had companions and guides enough, and enough, also, to explain to them the meaning of all they saw. I had been in Edinburgh on a former occasion, and was now engaged in looking up and conversing with old friends, whose former kindness now claimed my first attention; and in hunting for one of them, I found his office had been removed to another part of the city; and, making my way towards it as well as I could, I was amused at the instructions given to me when I inquired of a man whom I met in the street, and who, it happened, was acquainted with my friend and his location, and who relieved me instantly from further embarrassment by the following most lucid and simple direction, as he pointed down the street:--"You have only to take the first turning to the right, Sir, and it is the top flat at the bottom." This seemed queer and amusing to me, though not in the least embarrassing, for I had been long enough in Edinburgh before to learn that a "flat" was a "story" or floor; and long enough in London to know that one _end_ of a street is the "top" and the other the "bottom."