Dundee, accompanied by only thirty picked men, rode swiftly along a street in the old city, nearly parallel to the present line of Princes Street, while the drums in the town were beating to arms to pursue him; and leaving his men in a by-place, clambered up the steep rock at this point, and urged the duke to accompany him, but without effect. Scott's song of "Bonnie Dundee" tells us,—
"Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street,
The bells they ring backward, the drums they are beat;
But the provost, deuce man! said, 'Just e'en let him be,
For the town is well rid of that de'il o' Dundee.'"
Dundee rode off towards Stirling, with the threat that,—
"If there's lords in the Southland, there's chiefs in the North;
There are wild dunnie vassals, three thousand times three,
Will cry, 'Hey for the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!'"
From what is known as the Bomb Battery an excellent view of Edinburgh is obtained. Here is a curious piece of early artillery, of huge size, designated Mons Meg, made at Mons in Brittany, in 1476, of thick iron bars hooped together, and twenty inches diameter at the bore. Near this is the Chapel of Queen Margaret, a little Norman building eight hundred years old, used by Margaret, Queen of Malcolm III., daughter of Edward the Outlaw, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, who, it will be remembered, disputed the crown of England for so many years with Canute.