The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-02-29
Subscription, One Dollar per Year.
Edinburgh.

EQlnDuISn.
Come, come, get up Our guide has been
waiting for us for the last half hour. That
was poor breakfast for frst-class hotel
Indeed it was but who cares SO long as we
have such splendid day for our sightseeing
in this grand old Scottish metropolis? Where
is our guide? There at the door. What
queer, dried-up, medi@val-looking character
he is Yes, but his quaint, Gaelic dialect,
together with his perfect knowledge of the
history of Edinburgh, will make him most
interesting chaperone. He is very old, but
before we get through with him we will find
him remarkable in the wonderful fuency of
his speech and his untiring pedestrian abili-
ties. Well now, if we are all ready, let us
start. All right. Forward, march. Where
do we go? First to the National Gallery in
Prince Street Garden, on our way to the
castle; then down High street to Hollywood
Palace.
Well, here we are at the National Gallery.
This is indeed handsome, Grecian-looking
edifce, designed by Playfair. The founda-
ton stone was laid by the late Prince Consort
on the 30th of August 1850. 1t was built at
a cost of $500, 900. The interior consists of
two ranges of galleries, lighted entirely from
the roof. In the eastern one the Royal Scot
fish Academy has its annual exhibitions of
the works of living artists, and from February
to May it is the most fashionable resort in
Edinburgh. The western one Is assigned
solely to the permanent collection of works
of art. The first room contains specimens of
the Flemish, Dutch and French schools Of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
central or second room, specimens of the
Italian, Venetian, Genoese, Florentine, Flem-
ish and other schools of the same period,
while the third room is devoted to specimens
of the Scottish schools
But come, we must not finger in this COM
paratively modern gallery while there are 80
many real old, historic places to be visited.
We have steep climb from here up to
High street. This narrow valley occupied
by these beautiful Prince Street Gardens was
swampy, marshy loch or lake in ye olden
times. Passing out of the new town through
this splendid park into the old town is like
going from the outer sunshine under glori-
GUS archway into the sombre shadows of
grand old cathedral Our short walk up this
steep hill seems to suddenly transport
us back to those vanished days when courtly
ladies and steel-clad knights rode along these
same streets, Passing through this filthy,
gloomy "close" we come to this quaint
many-storied, tumble-down old house. where
Mary of Guise was born. All how have the
mighty fallen Once the splendid abode of
royalty, this old building is now the filthy
dwelling place of the most abiect poverty. 1t
is now sixth rate tenement How human
beings can exist in such place, eating and
drinking surrounded by the close, dark atmos-
phere, and not be smothered by the stencil,
is something hard to understand. Living is
not expensive in this ancient palace OF Scot
fish royalty Our guide tells US that room
can be obtained for from eightpence to
shilling and eightpence a week. That is,
from eight dollars and thirty-two cents to
eighteen dollars and seventy two cents year.
But here we are in High street. 1t is
mile long, running from the castle down to
Holyrood 1t is not Z" broadway !" it is ex-
ceedingly narrow. Stone buildings, very
high, dark and squalid, bound it on either
side. These lofty houses are densely ten
anted From many of the windows dirty
faced children, pipe-smoking men, frowzy-
headed women lean out and stolidly stare at
us as we walk by.
Thank God that we are not obliged to live
in this wilderness of dirty, gloomy tene-
ments. Throughout its whole length this
historic thoroughfare is punctured with mar
row lanes, some of them running through to
Cannongate, Back and Cowgate, and others
ending in courts.
These lanes or closes or wynds are only
from three to five feet wide, but they are
lined with tenements All of these narrow
lanes are named AS we walk along High
street, you read Advocates close, White Horse
close, Baxter's Close near which stands the
old house in which Hume wrote his history of
England, Big Jocks close Bakehouse close,
Strathies' close, &c. All of these sad-looking
rookeries were once the homes of the Scot
fish nobility The dukes and earls of the
olden times were evidently satisfied with very
rude accommodations. Their princely splen-
dor was of most humble kind. These
gloomy buildings are by no means an attrac-
ton to our Yankee eyes, but still there is no
street in the world more famous in history.
Some of Scotland's most bloody tragedies
have been along this now flthy-looking thor
fare.
There have been beheadings and gibbetings
and hangings and Standings and burnings
and murders in about every form suggested
by devilish ingenuity perpetrated within the
boundaries of this decaying and odorous
street 1t has resounded to the mightiest
eloquence, witnessed the grandest heroism,
and shut in the most terrible despair the
world has ever known.
Here John Knox grandly waged his battle
of the Reformation. Here valiant Argyle
marched bravely to his shameful death. Here
the murderers of King James paid the PEN
atty of their awful crime. Along this street
Queen Mary rode back and forth with her
splendid train between the castle and Holy
rood, in the sunny days of her first ascension
of the Scottish throne. Up this street Prince
Charles and his wild Highlanders stormed on
their way to death. Here in the old Tolbooth
men and women, torn from their families and