The esplanade or parade ground of the castle covers about six acres. Over the drawbridge, between the low protecting batteries, along the ramparts we pass to the strong gate that gives us admission to the inner fort, which contains the older portions of the castle. In this pile of buildings on the east side are, what we more specially came to see, the state apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the wall down which her infant son was lowered in a basket. Here, too, we see the crown-room containing the regalia of Scotland, the crown, scepter, and sword of state, and the lord-treasurer’s rod of office. From the ramparts we are shown northward the magnificent view of the new town, while to the east lies the old town, backed by Arthur’s Seat. The line of street eastward from the castle to Holyrood House, contains many of Edinburgh’s most prominent buildings, both new and old. Near the foot of the hill is the new Assembly Hall, the meeting place of the General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland, and near it the Church Normal Schools and the extensive buildings of the Free Church College, and the Parliament House, whose carved, oaken-roofed hall—the Westminster Hall of Edinburgh—was used by the Parliament before the union with England. Near at hand is the old Cathedral of St. Giles, whose space after the Reformation was divided into four churches, in one of which John Knox was wont to preach. We pass near his house also, and approach the memorial of Scotland’s ancient splendor, the ancient palace and abbey of Holyrood. The ruins of the chapel where Mary Stuart was married to Darnley, and where King Charles the First was crowned, lie behind the present structure, which was rebuilt after the destruction of the old palace by Cromwell. The spot abounds in historical associations. It was a most powerful institution as an abbey, the abbot holding regular court like other barons: as a royal refuge it sheltered Charles the Tenth of France during the Revolution, and as a residence has received at times nearly all the crowned heads of England, not excepting Queen Victoria, who sometimes stops here _en route_ to Balmoral, and who held a levee here in 1842. Yet of all its associations, that with Mary Stuart is the one most familiar, and perhaps most painfully interesting to the stranger. Here are the rooms she last occupied, her bed-chamber remaining as she left it, here the cabinet where Rizzio was murdered. These apartments are in the northwest corner, and the oldest portion of the present quadrangular building.