The long irregular line of slowly ascending mediæval street from Holyrood to the Castle was, and is, the backbone of Old Edinburgh. From this backbone there jut out on either side, forming, as it were, the ribs from the spine, all those narrow wynds and quaint closes so characteristic of the Old Town, and so full of the traditions and stories of Old Town life. The main street itself is in three divisions--the Canongate, nearest to Holyrood, then the main portion, or High Street, and, highest up and nearest to the Castle, the Lawnmarket. Between the Canongate and the High Street there used, in bygone days, to be the famous old city gate, the Netherbow Port, for the Canongate, a separate burgh, was beyond the Flodden wall, which at this point crossed the ridge of the town. At the junction [Illustration: JOHN KNOX’S HOUSE, HIGH STREET To the left of the square stone water-conduit, which occupies the centre of the picture, is seen the west front of this picturesque structure, and still farther to the left a “fore-stair” of a building which may be of an earlier date than the one known as John Knox’s House. The opening into the Canongate to the right of the picture is St. Mary Street.] of the High Street and the Lawnmarket stood the Church of St. Giles, and, right out in the middle of the street and dividing the traffic into two narrow streams, the hoary Tolbooth, or “Heart of Midlothian.” This, then, was Old Edinburgh, the Edinburgh that Taylor, the Water-poet, so well describes. “So, leaving the castle,” he writes, “as it is both defensive against any opposition and magnificke for lodging and receite, I descended lower to the city, wherein I observed the fairest and goodliest streete that ever mine eyes beheld, for I did never see or heare of a street of that length (which is half an English mile from the castle to a faire port, which they call the Nether-bow); and from that port, the streete which they call the Kenny-hate is one quarter of a mile more, downe to the kings palace, called Holyrood-house; the buildings on each side of the way being all of squared stone, five, six, or seven stories high, and many by-lanes and closes on each side of the way, wherein are gentlemens houses, much fairer than the buildings in the high-street, for in the high-street marchants and tradesmen do dwell, but the gentlemens mansions and goodliest houses are obscurely founded in the aforesaid lanes: the walles are eight or tenne foote thicke, exceeding strong, not built for a day, a weeke, a moneth, or a yeere, but from antiquitie to posteritie, for many ages.”[34]