the N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil,
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet
eastward of the tower there was found in the bank,
in 1820, a large coffin of thick fir containing three
skeletons, a male and two females, supposed to be
those of a man named Sinclair and his two sisters,
who were all drowned?in the loch in 1628 for a
horrible crime.
Eastward of this tower of the 15th century are the
remains of a long, low archway, walled with rubble,
but arched with well-hewn stones, popularly known
as ?the lion?s den,? and which has evidently formed
a portion of that secret escape or covered way
from the Castle (which no Scottish fortress was ever
without), the tradition concerning which is of general
and very ancient belief; and this idea has been still
further strengthened by the remains of a similar
subterranean passage being found below Brown?s
Close, on the Castle Hill. At the highest part of
the latter stood the ancient barrier gate of 1450,
separating the fortress from the city. This gate
was temporarily replaced on the occasion of the
visit of George IV, in 1822, and by an iron
chuaux de fdse-to isolate the 82nd Regiment and
garrison generally-during the prevalence of Asiatic
cholera, ten years subsequently.
There stood on the north side of the Castle
Hill an ancient church, some vestiges of which were
visible in Maitland?s time, in 1753, and which he
supposed to have been dedicated to St, Andrew the
patron of Scotland, and which he had seen referred
to in a deed of gift of twenty merks yearly, Scottish
money, to the Trinity altar therein, by Alexander
Curor, Vicar of Livingstone, 20th December, 1488.
In June, 1754, when some workmen were levelling
this portion of the Castle Hill, they discovered a
subterranean chamber, fourteen feet square,
wherein lay a crowned image of the Virgin, hewn
of very white stone, two brass altar candlesticks,
some trinkets, and a few ancient Scottish and French
coins. By several remains of burnt matter and two
large cannon balls being also found there, this
edifice was supposed to have been demolished
durbg some of the sieges undergone by the Castle
since the invention of artillery. Andin December,
1849, when the Castle Hill was being excavated
for the new reservoir, several finely-carved stones
were found in what was understood to be the
foundation of this chapel or of Christ?s Church,
which was commenced there in 1637, and had
actually proceeded so far that Gordon of Rothiemay
shows it in his map with a high-pointed spire,
but it was abandoned, and its materials used in
the erection of the present church at the Tron.
Under all this were found those pre-historic human
remains referred to in our first chapter. This was
the site of the ancient water-house. It was not
until ~ 6 2 1 that the citizens discovered the necessity
for a regular supply of water beyond that which
the public wells with their watef-carriers afforded.
It cannot be supposed that the stagnant fluid of the
north and south lochs could be fit for general use,
yet, in 1583 and 1598, it was proposed to supply
the city from the latter. Eleven years after the
date above mentioned, Peter Brusche, a German
engineer, contracted to supply the city with water
from the lands of Comiston, in a leaden pipe of three
inches? bore, for a gratuity of 650. By the year
1704 the increase of population rendered an additional
supply from Liberton and the Pkntland Hills
necessary. As years passed on the old water-house
proved quite inadequate to the wants of the city.
It was removed in 1849, and in its place now stands
the great reservoir, by which old and new Edinburgh
are alike supplied with water unexampled in
purity, and drawn chiefly from an artificial lake
in the Pentlands, nearly seven miles distant. On
the outside it is only one storey in height, with a
tower of 40 feet high; but within it has an area I 10
feet long, go broad, and 30 deep, containing two
millions of gallons ofwater, which can be distributed
through the entire city at the rate of 5,000 gallons
per minute,
Apart from the city, embosomed among treesand
though lower down than this reservoir, yet
perched high in air-upon the northern bank of the
Esplanade, stands the little octagonal villa of Allan
Ramsay, from the windows of which the poet would
enjoy an extensive view of all the fields, farms, and
tiny hamlets that lay beyond the loch below, with
the vast panorama beyond-the Firth of Forth,
with the hills of Fife and Stirling. ?The sober
and industrious life of this exception to the race
of poets having resulted in a small competency,
he built this oddly-shaped house in his latter days,
designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet he had
so often eulogised in his verse. The story goes:
says Chambers in his ?? Traditions,? ? that, showing
it soon after to the clever Patrick Lord Elibank,
with much fussy interest in its externals and accommodation,
he remarked that the vyags were already
at work on the subject-they likened it to a goosepie
(owing to the roundness of the shape). ? Indeed,
Allan,? said his lordship, ?now I see you in it I think
the wags are not far wrong.? ?
Ramsay, the author of the most perfect pastoral
poem in the whole scope of British literature, and
a song writer of great merit, was secretly a
Jacobite, though a regular attendant in St. Giles?s
Church. Opposed to the morose manners of his
