306 QLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur?s Seat.
name of Arthur?s Seat were anciently covered with
wood. The other eminences in the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh had similar appellations. Calton, or
Culdoun, is admitted to be the hill covered with
trees.? But there is another hill named thus-
ChoiZZedm, near the Loch of Monteith.
The rough wild path round the base of the Salisbury
Craigs, long before the present road was
formed, was much frequented for purpose of reverie
by David Hume and Sir Walter Scott Thither Scott
represents Reuben Butler as resorting on the morning
after the Porteous mob :-?? If I were to choose
a spot from which the rising or setting sun could
be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would
be that wild path winding round the foot of the
high belt of semicircular rocks, called Salisbury
Craigs, and marking the verge of the steep descent
which slopes down into the glen on the southeastern
side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect
in its general outline commands a close-built
high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath in a
form, which to a romantic imagination may be
supposed to represent that of a dragon; now a
noble ?arm of the sea, with its rocks, isles, distant
shores, and boundary of mountains; and now a
fine and fertile champaign country varied with hill
and dale. . . . . This path used to be my favourite
evening and morning resort, when engaged with a
favourite author or a new subject of study.?
The highest portion of these rocks near the Catnick,
is 500 feet above the level of the Forth; and
here is found a vein of rock different in texture
from the rest ?This vein,? says a writer, ?has
been found to pierce the sandstone below the footpath,
and no doubt fills the vent of an outflow of
volcanic matter from beneath. A vein of the same
nature has probably fed the stream of lava, which
forced its way between the strata of sandstone, and
formed the Craigs.?
A picturesque incident, which associates the unfortunate
Mary with her turbulent subjects, occurred
zt the foot of Arthur?s Seat, in 1564. In the romantic
valley between it and Salisbury Craigs there is still
traceable a dam, by which the natural drainage had
been confined to form an artificial lake ; at the end
of which, in that year, ere her wedded sorrows
began, the beautiful young queen, in the sweet
season, when the soft breeze came laden witb the
perfume of the golden whin flowers from the adjacent
Whinny Hill, had an open-air banquet set
forth in honour of the nuptials of John, fifth Lord
Fleming, Lord High Chamberlain, and Elizabeth
the only daughter and heiress of Robert Master of
Ross.
In 1645, when the dreaded pestilence reached
?
Edinburgh, we find that in the month of April the
rown Council agreed with Dr. Joannes Paulitius
that for a salary of A80 Scots per month
he should visit the infected, a vast number of
whom had been borne forth from the city and
hutted in the King?s Park, at the foot of Arthur?s
Seat; and on the 27th of June the Kirk Session
of Holyrood ordered, that to avoid further infection,
all who died in the Park should be buried there,
and not within any churchyard, ? except they mor4
tified (being able to do so) somewhat, adpios usus,
for the relief of other poor, being in extreme
indigence.? (? Dom. Ann.,? Vol. 11.)
In November, 1667, we find Robert Whitehead,
laud of Park, pursuing at law John Straiton,
tacksman of the Royal Park, for the value of a
horse, which had been placed there to graze at 4d
per night, but which had disappeared-no uncommon
event in those days ; but it was ulged by
Straiton that he had a placard on the gate intimating
that he would not be answerable either
for horses that were stolen, or that might break their
necks by falling over the rocks. Four years afterwards
we read of a curious duel taking place in the
Park, when the Duke?s Walk, so called from its
being the favourite promenade of James Duke of
Albany, was the common scene of combats with
sword and pistol in those days, and for long after.
In the case referred to the duellists were men in
humble life.
On the 17th June, 1670, William Mackay, a
tailor, being in the Castle of Edinburgh, had a
quarrel with a soldier with whom he was drinking,
and blows were exchanged. Mackay told the
soldier that he dared not use him so if they were
without the gates of the fortress, on which they
deliberately passed out together, procured a couple
of sharp swords in the city, and proceeded to a
part of the King?s Park, when after a fair combat,
the soldier was run through the body, and slain.
Mackay was brought to trial ; he denied having
given the challenge, and accused the soldier of
being the aggressor ; but the public prosecutor
proved the reverse, so the luckless tailor-not being
a gentleman-was convicted, and condemned to
die.
A beacon would seem to have been erected on the
cone of Arthur?s Seat in 1688 to communicate with
Fifeshire and the north (in succession from Garleton
Hill, North Berwick, and St. Abb?s Head) on the
expected landing of the Prince of Orange. On
one occasion the appearance of a large fleet of
Dutch fishing vessels off the mouth of the Firth
excited the greatest alarm, being taken for-a hostile
armament. --
Arthut?s Seat] ? THE WILD MACRAAS.? 307
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of the 29th
of October, 1728, contains the following reference
to the Craigs, or the chasm, there named the
Catnick :-? A person who frequents the (King?s)
Park, having noticed a man come from a cleft
towards the north-west of Salisbury Rocks, had the
curiosity to climb the precipice, if possibly he
might discover something that could invite him
there, He found a shallow pit, which delivered
him into a little snug room or vault hung with
dressed leather, lighted from the roof, the window
covered with a bladder. It is thought to have been
the cave of a hermit of ancient times, though now
the hiding-place of a gang of thieves.?
The long, deep, and tremendous rift in the wes
t e n slope of Arthur?s Seat (locally known as the
Gutiit Haddie) was caused by a mighty waterspout,
on the 13th of September, 1744. ?Dividing its
force ?-says the ? Old Statistical -4ccount ?-?? it
discharged one part upon the western side, and
tore up a channel or chasm, which still remains a
monument of its violence ; the other division took
its direction towards the village of Duddingston,
carried away the gable .of the most westerly cottage,
and flooded the loch over the adjacent meadows.?
On the steep sloping shoulder of Arthur?s Seat,
south-westward, under the Rock of Dunsappie, the
Highland army encamped in September before
the battle of Prestonpans, and from thence it was
-after the Prince had held a council of his chief5
and nobles-the march began at daybreak on the
morning of the 20th through the old hedgerow:
and woods of Duddingston, with pipes playing
and colours flying, after Charles, in front of thc
he, had significantly drawn his claymore and flung
away the scabbard.
From a letter which appears in the Advertiser foi
the 15th of January, 1765, the entrance to tne Park
from St. Anne?s Yard to the Duke?s Walk having
become impassable, was privately repaired at tht
expense of a couple of classical wits, whose name:
were unknown, but who placed upon the entrance
the following inscription :-
Ite nunc faciles per gaudia uestra,
3 Cpuepecun sua re@&durn cur.
CaLIan. MD.C.CLXl?
rJ*i faciant ut haec smpiusjunf.
QUIRITES
Mungo Campbell (formerly officer of Excise ai
Saltcoats), who shot Archibald, tenth Earl oj
Eglinton, committed suicide in the Tolbooth ic
1770, on the day after he had been sentenced
to death, when the judge also directed that hi2
body should be given to the professor of anatomy,
His counsel having interposed on the plea that dip
section was not a legal penalty for self-murder, it
was privately interred at the foot of Salisbury Craigs.
But the Edinburgh mob, who were exasperated by
the manner in which he had shot the earl in a
poaching affray, took the .body out of the grave,
tossed it about till they were tired, and eventually
flung it over the cliffs. After this, to prevent
further indecency and outrage, Campbell?s friends
caused the body to be conveyed in a boat from
Leith and sank it in the Firth of Forth. (Caldwell
Papers ; S o t s Mug., Vol. XXXII.)
Southward of the coue of Arthur?s Seat are the
Raven?s Craig and the Nether Hill, or Lion?s
Haunch ; between the latter and the cone can still
be traced the trench and breastwork formed by the
Seaforth Highlanders when they revolted in 1778-
an event which created a profound sensation in
Scotland.
In the July of that year they had marched into
the Castle, replacing the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers,
or 80th Regiment of the Line, a corps
which was raised by General Sir William Erskme in
1777, and was disbanded in 1783-5.
Kenneth Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth, had
recently raised his noble regiment, which was then
numbered as the 78th (but is now known as the
Duke of Albany?s Own Highlanders), among his
clansmen in the district of Kintail and Applecross,
Kilcoy, and Redcastle ; of these Soawere from his
own estate; the rest were all from the others
named, and the corps mustered 1,130 bayonets at
its first parade in Elgin in the May of 1778 ; but
from a great number of another sept who were
in its ranks, the subsequent mutiny was known at
first as the afair of the WiZd Mwaas.
The latter was an ancient but subordinate tribe
of the west, who had followed the ? Caber Feigh,?
or banner of Seaforth, since the days when Black
Murdoch of Kintail carried it in the wars of
Robert I., and now many of its best men were
enrolled in Earl Kenneth?s new Fencible regiment,
perfect subordination in the ranks of which was
maintained in the Castle until the 5th of August,
when an order was issued for marching at an hour?s
notice. A landing of a French force being expected
near Greenock, zoo of them, with seven
9-pounders, marched there with the greatest enthusiasm
to meet the foe, who never appeared; but
by the time these two companies returned, transports
to convey the whole for foreign service had come
to anchor in Leith Roads.
Where the scene of that service lay the men
knew not. It was kept a mystery from them and
their officers. The former would not believe a
rumour spread that it was to be tine Isle of Guern
