Quitting the Abbey and the Palace, we turned into the Canongate, and
passed thence into High Street, which, I think, is a continuation of the
Canongate; and being now in the old town of Edinburgh, we saw those
immensely tall houses, seven stories high, where the people live in
tiers, all the way from earth to middle air. They were not so quaint and
strange looking as I expected; but there were some houses of very antique
individuality, and among them that of John Knox, which looks still in
good repair. One thing did not in the least fall short of my
expectations,--the evil odor, for which Edinburgh has an immemorial
renown,--nor the dirt of the inhabitants, old and young. The town, to
say the truth, when you are in the midst of it, has a very sordid, grimy,
shabby, upswept, unwashen aspect, grievously at variance with all poetic
and romantic associations.
From the High Street we turned aside into the Grass-Market, the scene of
the Porteous Mob; and we found in the pavement a cross on the site where
the execution of Porteous is supposed to have taken place.