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,'
