The rain ceases towards evening and from our hotel window we have a fine prospect of the city. It is clean and fresh after the heavy drenching and glistens in the declining sun, which shines fitfully through the breaking clouds. There have been many poetical eulogies and descriptions since Burns addressed his lines to “Edina, Scotia’s Darling Seat,” but W. E. Henley’s “From a Window in Princes Street” seems to us most faithfully to give the impression of the city as we see it now:
“Above the crags that fade and gloom
Starts the bare knee of Arthur’s seat:
Ridged high against the evening bloom,
The Old Town rises, street on street;
With lamps bejewelled; straight ahead
Like rampired walls the houses lean,
All spired and domed and turreted,
Sheer to the valley’s darkling green;
While heaped against the western grey,