to extinct Scottish regiments, and various weapons
from the field of Culloden, particularly the Doune
steel pistols, of beautiful workmanship, worn by
Highland gentlemen.
Near this rises the Hawk Hi?l, where kings and
nobles practised falconry of old; on the left is
the Gothic arch of the citadel; and on the right
* rises the great mass of the hideous and uncomfortable
infantry barracks, erected partly on the
archery butts, in 1796, and likened by Sir Walter
Scott to a vulgar cotton-mill. This edifice is 150
feet long, and four storeys high to the westward,
where it rises on a massive arcade, and from its
windows can be had a magniticent prospect, extend-
'ing almost to the smoke of Glasgow, and the blue
cone of Ben Lomond, fifty miles distant.
On the south-west is Drury's gun-hattery, so
named from the officer of Scottish Engineers who
built it in 1689, and in its rear is the square prisonhouse,
built in 1840. Passing through the citadel
gate, we find on the left the modern water-tank,
the remains of the old shot-yard, the door of which
has now disappeared; but on the gablet above it
was a thistle, with the initials D.G.M.S. Here is
the king's bastion, on the north-west verge of the
citadel, and on the highest cliff of the Castle rock.
Here, too, are St Margaret's Chapel, which we
have already described, Mons Meg, frowning, as
of old, from the now-ruinous mortar battery, and
a piece of bare rock, the site of a plain modern
chapel, the pointed window of which was once
conspicuous from Princes Street, but which was
demolished by Colonel Moodie, R.E., in expectation
fhat one more commodious would be erected.
But macy years have since passed, and this has
never been done, consequently there is now no
chapel for the use of the troops of any religious
denomination; while the office of chaplain has
also been abolished, at
a time when Edinburgh
has been made a dep8t
centre for Scottish regiments,
and in defiance
of the fact that the
Castle is under the
Presbytery, and is a
parish of the city.
The platform of the
half-moon battery is
510 feet above the level
of the Forth. It is
armed with old 18 and
24 pounders, one of
which is, at one P.M.,
fired by electricity as a
time-gun, by a wire from the Calton Hill. It is
furnished with a lofty flagstaff, an iron grate for
beacon fires, and contains a draw-well IIO feet
deep. From its massive portholes Charles 11. saw
the rout of Cromwell's troops at Lochend in 1650;
and from there the Corsican chief Saoli in 1771,
the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1819, George IV. in
1822, Queen Victoria, and many others of note,
have viewed the city that stretched at their feet
below.
Within this battery is the ancient square or
Grand Parade, where some of the most interesting
buildings in the Castle are to be found, as it is
on the loftiest, most precipitous, and inaccessible
portion of the isolated rock. Here, abutting on
the very verge of the giddy cliff, overhanging the
Grassmarket, several hundred feet below, stands
all that many sieges have left of the ancient royal
palace, forming the southern and easterr. sides of
the quadrangle. The chief feature of the former is
a large battlemented edifice, now nearly destroyed
by its conversion into a military hospital. This
was the ancient hall of the Castle, in length 80
feet by 33 in width, and 27 in height, and
lighted by tall mullioned windows from the south,
wherein Parliaments have sat, kings have feasted
and revelled, ambassadors been received, and
treaties signed for peace or war. Some remains
of its ancient grandeur are yet discernible amid
the new floors and partitions that have been run
through it. At the summit of the principal staircase
is a beautifully-sculptured stone corbel representing
a well-cut female face, ornamented on each
side by a volute and thistle. On this rests one of
the original beams of the open oak roof, and on each
side are smaller beams with many sculptured shields,
all defaced by the whitewash of the barrack
pioneers and hospital orderlies. " The view from
CHEST IN WHICH THE REGALIA WERE FOUND.
the many windows on
this side is scarcely surpassed
by any other in
the capital. Immediately
below are the picturesque
old houses of
the Grassmarket and
West Port, crowned by
the magnificent towers
of Heriot's Hospital.
From this deep abyss
the hum of the neighbouring
city rises up,
mellowed by the distance,
into one pleasing
voice of life and industry
; while far beyond a
