In fine, we
passed through the Grass-Market, where we saw the cross in the pavement
in the street, marking the spot, as I recorded before, where Porteous was
executed. Thence we passed through the Cowgate, all the latter part of
our drive being amongst the tall, quaint edifices of the old town, alike
venerable and squalid. From the Grass-Market the rock of the castle
looks more precipitous than as we had hitherto seen it, and its prisons,
palaces, and barracks approach close to its headlong verge, and form one
steep line with its descent. We drove quite round the Castle Hill, and
returned down Prince's Street to our hotel. There can be no other city
in the world that affords more splendid scenery, both natural and
architectural, than Edinburgh.
Then we went to St. Giles's Cathedral, which I shall not describe, it
having been kirkified into three interior divisions by the Covenanters;
and I left my wife to take drawings, while J----- and I went to
Short's Observatory, near the entrance of the castle. Here we saw a
camera-obscura, which brought before us, without our stirring a step,
almost all the striking objects which we had been wandering to and fro to
see. We also saw the mites in cheese, gigantically magnified by a solar
microscope; likewise some dioramic views, with all which I was mightily
pleased, and for myself, being tired to death of sights, I would as lief
see them as anything else. We found, on calling for mamma at St.
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