312 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur?s Seat.
to the cone from the base by the way of St. Anthony?s
Well, for a wager, in fifteen minutes, on a hot summer?s
day-a feat in which he was timed by the
eminent naturalist William Smellie.
In 1828 the operations connected with the railway
tunnel, under the brow of the columnar mass
of basalt known as Samson?s Ribs, commenced,
and near to the springs so well known in tradition
as the Wells of Wearie. Close by these wells, and
near a field named Murder Acre, in May the work-
In 1843 the sum 0Cit;40,000 was paid to Thomas
Earl of Haddington, for the surrender of his office
of Hereditary Keeper of the Royal Park, and
thereafter extensive improvements were carried
out under the supervision of the Commissioners for
Woods and Forests. Among these not the least
was the Queen?s Drive, which winds round the
park, passes over a great diversity of ground from
high to low, slope to precipice, terrace to plateau,
and commands a panorama second to none in
DUDDINGSTON CHURCH (EXTERIOR).
men came upon three human skeletons, only three
and a half feet below the surface of the smooth
green turf. As a very large dirk was found near
one of them, they were conjectured to be the remains
of some of Prince Charles?s soldiers, who had
died in the camp on the hill. The U Wells,? are
the theme of more than one Scottish song, and a
very sweet one runs thus :-
#?And ye maun gang wi? me, my winsom Mary Grieve ;
There is nought in the world to fear ye ;
To gang to the Wells 0? Wearie.
Nor tinge your white brow, my dmrie ;
By the lanesome Wells 0? Wearie.?
For I have asked your minnie, and she has $en ye leave,
? Oh, the sun winna blink in your bonnie blue een,
For I will shade a bower wi? rashes lang and green,
Europe. All the old walls which had intersected
the park in various places, in lots as the Hamilton
family had rented it off for their own behoof, were
swept away at this time, together with the old
powder magazine in the Hause, a curious little
edifice having a square tower like a village church ;
and during these operations there was found at the
base of the craigs one of the most gigantic
boulders ever seen in Scotland. It was blown up
by gunpowder, and, by geologists, was alleged to
have been tom out of the Corstorphine range
during the glacial period.
Among the improvements at this time may be
included the removal, in 1862, and re-erection (in
the northern slope of the craigs) of St. Margaret?s
Well from Restalrig, where it had been all hut
buried under the workshops of the North British
Railway ; but now a limpid perennial rill from the
Craigs flows into its ancient basin, the Gothic archway
to which is closed by an open iron gate.
The old solitude and amenity of the Hunter's
Bog, after 1858, were destroyed by the necessary
erection of four rifle ranges, two of 300 yards, and
two of 600 yards, for the use of the garrison and
DUDDINGSTON CHURCH (INTERIOR).
volunteers, and the construction of two unornamental
powder magazines. The danger signal is
always hoisted in !he gorge known as the Hause ;
the rocky ridge named the Dasses overlooks these
ranges on the east.
Leaving the Echoing Rock, an isolated eminence,
and following the old road round the hill,
under Samson's Ribs, a superb range of pentagonal
greenstone columns sixty feet long by five in
dkmeter, the Fox's Holes, and the rugged stony
slope named the Sclyvers, we come to a lofty
knoll named the Girnel Craig, and another named
the Hangman's Craig or Knowe, from the following
circumstance. About the reign of Charles II.,
the office of public executioner was taken by a
reduced gentleman, the last member of an old
88
reprobate could not altogether forget his former
tastes and habits. He would occasionally resume
the garb of a gentleman, and mingle in the parties
of citizens who played at golf in the evenings on
Bruntsfield Links. Being at length recognised,
he was chased from the ground with shouts of execration
and loathing, which affected him so much
that he retired to the solitude of the King's Park,
and was next day found dead at the bottom of a
precipice, over which he is supposed to have thrown
himself in despair. The rock was afterwards
called the Hangman's Grae."
The deep gorge between it and the Sclyvers is
named the Windy Goule, and through it winds the
ancient path that leads direct to the hamlet of
Duddingston, which, with the loch of that name,'
