Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
General
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Description and travel
Behind and overhead lie the Queen's Park, from Musehat's Cairn to
Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret's Loch, and the long wall of Salisbury's
Crags; and thence, by knoll and rocky bulwark and precipitous slope, the
eye rises to the top of Arthur's Seat, a hill for magnitude, a mountain
in virtue of its bold design. This upon your left. Upon the right, the
roofs and spires of the Old Town climb one above another to where the
citadel prints its broad bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the
western sky.... Perhaps it is now one in the afternoon; and at the same
instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of Nelson's flagstaff close
at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke, followed by a report, bursts
from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which
people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in hill farms upon
the Pent-lands. To complete the view, the eye enfilades Prince's Street,
black with traffic, and has a broad look over the valley between the Old
Town and the New; here, full of railway trains and stept over by the
high North Bridge upon its many columns, and there, green with trees
and gardens.
On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt in itself, nor has it
so exceptional an outlook; and yet even here it commands a striking
prospect. A gully separates it from the New Town. This is Greenside,
where witches were burned and tournaments held in former days. Down that
almost precipitous bank Bothwell launched his horse, and so first, as
they say, attracted the bright eyes of Mary. It is now tesselated with
sheets and blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating carpets
is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith
camps on the seaside with her forests of masts; Leith roads are full of
ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith
Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the
towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the
opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest
east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea. There lies
the road to Norway; a dear road for Sir Patrick Spens and his Scots
Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither side of Largo Law is Aberdour,
from whence they sailed to seek a queen for Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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