The stirring scene that the Grassmarket presented on certain days, as a regular horse-fair, may be seen in a fine engraving after Calcott in “The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland;” and is still more graphically depicted in one of Geikie’s humorous etchings. Here accordingly was a favourite resort of the boys from the neighbouring Bow. The Castle Esplanade at certain hours afforded a freer playground. At other times it offered the tempting attractions of military parade and drill. But Edinburgh has also within its civic bounds the royal park of Arthur’s Seat, the Salisbury Crags, and Duddingston Loch, looking as though a choice fragment of the Highlands had been transported thither to form an adequate pleasure-ground for the Scottish capital. Hither flocked the city boys alike from the closes and wynds of the old town and from the new town crescents and squares. There was room for all, and a choice of sport for every age. Here is a reminiscence of a very youthful pastime, recalled in 1883, in a letter to Mr. James Campbell, one of William Nelson’s old West Bow playmates:--“You will, I have no doubt, recollect a long, smooth stone near Jeanie Deans’ House, in the Queen’s Park. This stone was associated with my earliest recollections, as it was a great enjoyment for boys and girls to slide down it; and many a time, when I was a little boy, have I had this enjoyment. Well, the stone was in existence till only a few weeks ago, when some rascally fellows blew it to pieces with dynamite. The act is much to be regretted, as the stone, in addition to its being a source of enjoyment for little folks in the way I have stated, was extremely interesting to geologists as one of the finest illustrations near Edinburgh of the polish produced by glacial action.”