108 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
of the Forth, the Fife and the Lothian coasts, with the different towns and
villages along their sea-board, are distinctly visible ; the Lomonds forming a
bold and picturesque background to the one, and the gently rising and finely
wooded hills of Carberry and Falside a quieter and more subdued background
to the other ; with Inchkeith, of pious legend, in the foreground ; the
great Bass Rock, of Covenanter tale, further off on the right j and the mazy,
half-seen and half-unseen May, with its wonderful tragedy of ‘doul and
wae,’ far away in the distance, lit up with the bright fierce radiance of a
noonday sun, or ‘mistied with the golden breath of departing day;’-a
quiet careless saunter out to the further end of this fine sea promenade in
the afternoon or evening of a mild, sunshiny July or August day is a great
enjoyment; a happiness that lingers in the memory like some low sweet
strain of music heard across some moonlit lake, or warbled in some remote
and shadowy glen.
The town originally appears to have been built close to the harbour, the
most ancient part of it reaching from the shore along the east bank of the
stream for nearly half a mile, and the houses moved back sufficiently far to
form a pretty roomy quay for the loading and unloading of vessels. From
this quay eastwards the town diverged into a number of narrow streets and
lanes which are still extant : the dwellings tall, dark, and dingy, all very old,
and bearing obvious traces of having housed a much higher class of occupants
than now inhabit them. In these earlier days the principal thoroughfare to
and from the shore was Tolbooth Wynd, over which of late has come a great
change in the disappearance of almost all the edifices of the olden period, with
the substitution of shops and business premises in their stead, of an ornateness
of structure and grandeur of window-display that will contrast favourably even
with Princes Street itself. Kirkgate, into which in general all the other streets,
alleys, and lanes conducted, was then the chief street, although now-adays a
little shorn of its glory, and led to the foot of Leith Walk, a fine, broad
thoroughfare leading up to the city, and which, with an ordinary degree of
architectural taste and enterprise, might have been made the handsomest street
in Europe. Bernard and Constitution Streets, both of them of comparatively
recent formation, and in which are many substantial and elegant edifices,
are now the more common thoroughfare to and from the harbour and docks ;
while away to the south-east of Constitution Street, again, and facing the Links
on every side-an extensive grassy plain of nearly a mile in length and
over a quarter of a mile in breadth, the common playground of cricket and
golf-are rows of houses and villas of the most stately and imposing
