CHAPTER XXIX. THE METROPOLIS OF TARTAN-LAND. West Princes Street Gardens Floral and Personal Attrac- HE West Princes Street Gardens commence at the THE other side of the Mound from the Art Galleries, and are continued as far as the Castle Esplanade. Our Edinburgh lodgings happened to be in that part of Princes Street that was immediately opposite to the Castle, whose bold profile was thus presented to us in one of its best points of view, and with all its prominent features, whenever we looked out of window. Below us, and between us and the grim Castle, were the beautiful Gardens, falling in terraces and slopes down to the dried-up bed of the Loch, along which the railway rattles and thunders, as it rushes from its tunnel beneath the Mound, and, after a breath of fresh air in the Gardens, again plunges into another longer tunnel. The Gardens are divided from the street by open iron railings, within which is a broad walk under an avenue of trees, where are seats for the loungers and nursemaids. The position of our windows enabled us to look down upon this avenue, and take a bird's-eye view of the Gardens, with its open lawns, FLORAL AND PERSONAL ATTRACTIONS. 291 and winding walks, and clumps of shrubs, and bright flower-beds. The womenkind and children were always there in abundance, their various-coloured dresses and moving figures looking quite as ornamental as the equally gay but stationary flowers. These West-end Gardens being, in a measure, exclusive, and reserved for West-end folks, formed an agreeable rendezvous where pure air and mild pedestrianism could be indulged in, and where the latest novelties in fashion could be studied and displayed. Swells, chaperons, and young ladies lounged about; while little ladies, attired in the inflated style of the day, proved themselves to be children by the energy with which they threw themselves into bowling-of-hoops, la grace, and such other childish sports as were lawful in these aristocratic playgrounds. The dull rattle of cabs and carriages on the level line of Princes Street, far above them on the other side of the trees, would only sound to them as the pleasant murmur of the sea; and the sharper clang of grounding arms from the troops in the Castle, high above their heads on the southern side, together with the sharply-uttered words of command, would not be louder to them than the voice of the sailor lad as he shouts with his sister in play.' But the music of the bugle would ring more clearly upon the air. It was wafted across to us from the Castle with great distinctness, especially at night; and we could see the figures of the sentries on the ramparts, standing out against the clear sky. The music of the military band was also a great treat. A light bridge, crossing the railway, connects these Gardens with the northern side of the Castle Mound. This is beautifully turfed and planted; and the verdure of the trees and grass was a pleasant contrast to the dark iron-stone look of the precipitous rock on which the Castle is built. Mr. Colquhoun says, that the long-eared owl generally rears its young "on this rock;""* and the septuagenarian author of a recent work says, that, in 1797, 'there was an eyry of hawks having their nest in the front of the Castle Rock, immediately facing the bottom of South Castle Street, in Princes Street, which gave occupation to juvenile marksmen in their endeavour to dislodge them from their nests, or to bring them down while in pursuit of their prey, but which always ended in disappointment. I remember witnessing the rifle corps (or sharpshooters, as they were termed, of the North York militia), making the same attempt, but with a like unsuccessful result, which caused a great waste of powder and ball, and a vast amount of angry swearing amongst the men.'† Although the larger portion of the Castle buildings would, as Sir Walter Scott says, 'be honoured by a comparison with the most vulgar cotton-mill,' yet, on the whole, they present a bold outline, which, with its Cyclopean masses of rock, its height, and the sudden and precipitous way in which it terminates, renders the Castle a very impressive object when seen from any point of view, but especially when beheld in profile. The windows of our sitting-room afforded me a favourable opportunity of making a water-colour drawing of the view they commanded; and certainly, if the landlady needed any advertisement of her house, she could scarcely do better than circulate an engraving of the prospect from her windows, which included the view along the street to the Scott monument. * Rocks and Rivers, p. 93. + Reminiscences of a Scottish Gentleman, by Philo-Scotus (J. B. Ainslie), p. 85. SOU'-WESTERS IN PRINCES STREET. 293 There are classical buildings in Princes Street, and within sight of it, on Calton Hill; but no one of them is modelled after the Temple of the Winds. Yet such a memorial would be appropriate to the Modern Athens; for there could scarcely be a city more suited for the pranks of Æolus. It is not only the city of the Wynds, but of the Winds also; and as Princes Street lies open to the south and west, when sou'-westers are abroad, it is peculiarly favoured by their visitations. No sooner had my wife and I turned out of doors one morning, after a week's continuance of the sunniest and calmest weather, than we found Princes Street swept by one of the most vigorous of sou'-westers. With more or less difficulty, we struggled to the corner of the nearest street, and there found that our legs had no more power to support and guide our bodies, than if they had been the extremities of dolls. Carried passively by the gale across the wide street, my hatless course was arrested midway through thẻ medium of a stalwart native (evidently acclimatised to these sou'-westers), who threw his arms around me, and forcibly prevented me from immolating myself beneath a three-horsed Juggernaut omnibus that was rapidly descending the street. The while I was thus held, I beheld my wife, in a tumult of drapery and feelings, borne in a wild scud immediately in front of the three-abreast horses, and, to all appearance, against a plate-glass window; but, happily, she cannoned against a ball of a man on the pavement, and was pocketed by the embrasure of a shopdoor, into which my hat had already penetrated. I 'regained the felt, and felt what I regained;' and we struggled round back streets to our destination, old Boreas rushing out at us at every corner, and contesting every crossing. The sights that I witnessed on that hurricane-day in Princes Street, especially the power with which highly-hooped and crinolined ladies were hurled against specimens of the stronger (?) sex, forcibly reminded me of the Southron, who asked the Edinburgh Sandie how it was that a lamp-post was lying upon the ground, and was answered, A gal' swept against it with awfu' force.' 'Bless me!' said the Southron; and what became of the poor girl?' But Sandie meant the gale. Although, in strolling down Princes Street (on a calm day), there is so much to occupy the attention in looking across the Gardens to the Castle, and in studying the very opposite artistic beauties of the Scott monument and the buildings of the Old Town, yet counter-attractions of a very decided nature demand our notice in the shops and buildings. Of the latter, the clubs, and the splendid Venetian pile erected (in 1859) for the Life Association offices, take the lead; and the latter, from its position immediately facing the Mound, can be studied at a proper distance. Magnificent buildings are, however, the exception in Princes Street, and not the rule; but the shops have their own individual attractions, and, in many cases, an individual character peculiar to Edinburgh; for they are double shops. The basement-story, instead of being devoted to cellars or culinary purposes, is, in numerous instances, given up to shops, which have no more to do with the shops above them, and the houses in which they are placed, than the ground-floor shops in an Italian palace have to do with the spacious suites of rooms over their heads. Instead of being protected by area railings, these basementshops are left open to the street, from which you descend to them by a wide flight of steps. Thus, in the house in which you may chance to lodge, the base |