Stevenson," as there is already a "Land of
Burns," or a "Land of Scott," known to the tourist, bescribbled by the
guide-book maker? This the future must tell. Yet will it be easy to
mark out the bounds of "Robert Louis Stevenson's Country"; and, taking
his native and well-loved city for a starting-point, a stout walker may
visit all its principal sites in an afternoon. The house where he was
born is within a bowshot of the Water of Leith; some five miles to the
south are Caerketton and Allermuir, and other crests of the Pentlands,
and below them Swanston Farm, where year after year, in his father's
time, he spent the summer days basking on the hill slopes; two or three
miles to the westward of Swanston is Colinton, where his mother's father,
Dr Balfour, was minister; and here again you are back to the Water of
Leith, which you can follow down to the New Town. In this triangular
space Stevenson's memories and affections were firmly rooted; the fibres
could not be withdrawn from the soil, and "the voice of the blood" and
the longing for this little piece of earth make themselves plaintively
heard in his last notes. By Lothian Road, after which Stevenson quaintly
thought of naming the new edition of his works, and past Boroughmuirhead
and the "Bore Stane," where James FitzJames set up his standard before
Flodden, wends your southward way to the hills. The builder of suburban
villas has pushed his handiwork far into the fields since Stevenson was
wont to tramp between the city and the Pentlands; and you may look in
vain for the flat stone whereon, as the marvelling child was told, there
once rose a "crow-haunted gibbet." Three-quarters of an hour of easy
walking, after you have cleared the last of the houses will bring you to
Swanston; and half an hour more will take the stiff climber, a little
breathless, to

THE TOP OF CAERKETTON CRAGS.

You may follow the high road--indeed there is a choice of two, drawn at
different levels--athwart the western skirts of the Braid Hills, now
tenanted, crown and sides of them, by golf; then to the crossroads of
Fairmilehead, whence the road dips down, to rise again and circumvent the
most easterly wing of the Pentlands. You would like to pursue this
route, were it only to look down on Bow Bridge and recall how the last-
century gauger used to put together his flute and play "Over the hills
and far away" as a signal to his friend in the distillery below, now
converted into a d