It was an hour or two before I could find a place to stand in. I succeeded at last in getting on to the top of the west cliff, but myself and valet had to work hard for twenty minutes before we got in here. We chartered a soldier, who helped us manfully to enlarge a gap, by taking down a stone wall and levelling the footpath.
At Dunbar, on this cliff-top, from which there was a splendid view of the ever-changing sea, I lay for several days, making excursions hither and thither, and enjoying the sea-bathing.
(For further notes about pleasant excursions, fishing streams, etc, see my “Rota Vitae; or, Cyclist’s Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment.” Price 1 shilling. Published by Messrs Iliffe and Co, Fleet Street, London.)
The ancient town of Dunbar is too well-known to need description by me, although every one is entitled to talk about a place as he finds it. Dunbar, then, let me say parenthetically, is a town of plain substantial stone, with many charming villas around it. It has at least one very wide and spacious street, and it has the ruins of an ancient castle—no one seems to know how ancient; it has been the scene of many a bloody battle, and has a deal otherwise to boast about in a historical way.
I found the people exceedingly kind and hospitable, and frank and free as well.
English people ought to know that Dunbar is an excellent place for bathing, that it is an extremely healthy town, and could be made the headquarters for tourists wishing to visit the thousand and one places of interest and romance around it.
But it was the rock scenery that threw a glamour over me. It is indescribably wild and beautiful here. These rocks are always fantastic, but like the sea that lisps around their feet in fine weather, or dashes in curling wreaths of snow-white foam high over their summits, when a nor’-east storm is blowing, they are, or seem to be, ever-changing in appearance, never quite the same. Only, one rock on the horizon is ever the same, the Bass.
When the tide is back pools are left among the rocks; here bare-legged children dabble and play and catch the strange little fishes that have been left behind.
To see those children, by the way, hanging like bees—in bunches—on the dizzy cliff-tops and close to the edge, makes one’s heart at times almost stand still with fear for their safety.
There is food here for the naturalist, enjoyment for the healthy, and health itself for the invalid. I shall be happy indeed if what I write about the place shall induce tourists to visit this fine town.