Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/74

48 thing that we saw the next morning was the bold rocky projection of the Flamborough Head with the ocean ever and anon beating against its adamant base. Soon after we passed by the towns of Scarborough and Whitby, fine watering places both, annually visited by numerous visitors and tourists from different parts of England. The whole coast of Yorkshire seems to consist of a row of yellowish rocks boldly rising from the ocean. In the afternoon we could see the coast of Scotland, the purple and grotesque-formed rocks rising abruptly from the sea. At the entrance of the Frith of Forth there is a beautiful and picturesque rock, called the Bass Rock, which is inhabited by an immense number of Sea-birds, and is therefore called the "Habitation of sea-birds." On this rock are the ruins of a very ancient castle or dungeon; some covenanters seem to have been imprisoned here sometime or other. I forgot to tell you that while coming along the coast of Northumberland we saw the ruins of several ancient castles—nests of robber-chiefs, which were very useful in the days of border warfare between the Percies and the Douglases, but which have now fallen to disuse and decay. They look noble even in their decay, and the associations of hundreds of years fling a charm round their ruins. We landed at Granton and reached Edinburgh in half an hour's time at about quarter-past-eight in the evening, 22nd July.

Edinburgh, with hardly one-tenth the extent, one-fifteenth the population, or one-twentieth the commerce of London, is a far prettier town. The houses are built in a very