ch the broad streets of the new town,
overlooked by massive structures, built of the stone of the Edinburgh
quarries, which have the look of palaces.

"Streets of palaces and walks of slate,"

form the new town. Not a house of brick or wood exists in Edinburgh; all
are constructed of the excellent and lasting stone which the earth
supplies almost close to their foundations. High and solid bridges of this
material, with broad arches, connect the old town with the new, and cross
the deep ravine of the Cowgate in the old town, at the bottom of which you
see a street between prodigiously high buildings, swarming with the poorer
population of Edinburgh.

From almost any of the eminences of the town you see spread below you its
magnificent bay, the Frith of Forth, with its rocky islands; and close to
the old town rise the lofty summits of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crag, a
solitary, silent, mountainous district, without habitations or inclosures,
grazed by flocks of sheep. To the west flows Leith-water in its deep
valley, spanned by a noble bridge, and the winds of this chilly climate
that strike the stately buildings of the new town, along the cliffs that
border this glen, come from the very clouds. Beyond the Frith lie the
hills of Fifeshire; a glimpse of the blue Grampian ridges is seen where
the Frith contracts in the northwest to a narrow channel, and to the
southwest lie the Pentland hills, whose springs supply Edinburgh with
water. All around you are places the names of which are familiar names of
history, poetry, and romance.

From this magnificence of nature and art, the transition was painful to
what I saw of the poorer population. On Saturday evening I found myself at
the market, which is then held in High-street and the Netherbow, just as
you enter the Canongate, and where the old wooden effigy of John Knox,
with staring black eyes, freshly painted every year, stands in its pulpit,
and still seems preaching to the crowd. Hither a throng of sickly-looking,
dirty people, bringing with them their unhealthy children, had crawled
from the narrow wynds or alleys on each side of the street. We entered
several of these wynds, and passed down one of them, between houses of
vast height, story piled upon story, till we came to the deep hollow of
the Cowgate. Children were swarming in the way, all of them, bred in that
close and impure atmosphere, of a sickly appearance, and the aspect of
premature age in some of them,