


Transcribed from the 1903 Seeley & Co. Ltd. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                                EDINBURGH


                           _Picturesque Notes_
                                   _by_
                          Robert Louis Stevenson

                                * * * * *

                           _People's Edition_.

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON
                SEELEY & CO. LTD., 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
                                   1903




CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.


The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy
estuary from the <DW72> and summit of three hills.  No situation could be
more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for
noble prospects.  From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks
far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns.  To the east you may catch
at sunset the spark of the May lighthouse, where the Firth expands into
the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of Stirling,
you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi.

But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest
climates under heaven.  She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds
that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of
the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from
the Highland hills.  The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty
and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the
spring.  The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds
and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate.
For