LEITH. ‘07
revels, resulting usually in a number of free fights and occasional serious
skirmishes with the town-guard. Booths, taverns, and theatrical amusements
of every description, and to almost any extent, stood along the outer line of
the shore, reaching eastwards, while the pier, for the time being, was improvised,
and largely taken advantage of, as an excellent stand for the people. From
the time of the Restoration to the year 1816, these races appear to have been
held annually; but at that period they were removed to the Links of
Musselburgh, where they have been run ever since. Ferguson, in his ‘ Leith
Races,’ gives a very humorous and truly descriptive account of them, which
poem, we may add, not only suggested to Burns, Scotia’s bard par MtceZZmc,
but afforded him a model for, that inimitable and bitingly telling satire of
his, the ‘Holy Fair,’ so full of fun, racy description, and pawky commonsense.
Ecclesiastically, Leith is divided into the two parishes of North and South
Leith, separated from each other by the river ; the former lying to the west,
and including in it, since 1630, the baronies of Newhaven and Hillhousefield ;
the latter, to the east, is much the larger, and of a triangular shape, extending
along the shore to the Figget-bum at Portobello, thence following the line of
the public road to the city, embracing the abrogated parish of Restalng, and
till lately the Calton Hill, and reaching onwards to Leith Walk. Objections
have been taken to the site of the town as not the best adapted for a maritime
port. It has been urged that, in consequenee of the flat, sandy expanse
on which it is placed, and which the retiring tide at its ebb leaves quite-dry
for over a mile in breadth, it never can command any great depth of water,
while the river again, flowing through the harbour, runs so sluggishly, and
with such small volumeusually, that it has not power to keep the mouth of
the harbour free of .the mud and sand with which it is apt to become silted
up.‘ That, however, in these times, has been greatly obviated, and probably
at no distant day is destined to disappear altogether before the various
efficient and energetic efforts of engineering enterprise.
The harbour and docks, crowd4 as they generally are with shipping, flying
the colours of almost every nation and country, is a sight in itself worth
seeing. Indeed, a walk in this direction on a fine summer day or a quiet
autumn evening, when the winds are low and the sea ‘ calm as cradled child,’
and especially along either of the piers which form the harbour, with ships
and steamers and other craft ever in motion, outwards or inwards, lending
life and charm to the scene, is highly interesting. Then again, at the further
end of either promenade, what a grand and extensive prospect I Both sides
.
