hundred feet high. The winding stairway is rather narrow,
especially at the top, and it is not well lighted. As I was coming down
the stairs, I met a lady and gentleman. The little woman was not at all
enthusiastic over the experience she was having, and, without knowing of
my presence, she was wondering what they would do if they were to meet
any one. "Come on up and see," I said, and we passed without any special
difficulty, but she said she didn't believe "two stout ones could" pass.
As she went on up the winding way, she was heard expressing herself in
these words: "Oh, it is a place, isn't it? I don't like it." The
tourist finds many "places", and they are not all desirable. Princess
Street, on which the monument is located, is the prettiest street that I
have ever seen. One side is occupied by business houses and hotels, the
other is a beautiful garden, where one may walk or sit down, surrounded
by green grass and beautiful flowers.

Edinburgh Castle is an old fortification on the summit of a lofty hill
overlooking the city. It is now used as barracks for soldiers, and is
capable of accommodating twelve hundred men. Queen Mary's room is a
small chamber, where her son, James the First of Scotland and the Sixth
of England, was born. I was in the old castle in Glasgow where she spent
the night before the Battle of Langside, and later stood by her tomb in
Westminster Abbey. Her history, a brief sketch of which is given here,
is interesting and pathetic. "Mary Queen of Scots was born in Linlithgow
Palace, 1542; fatherless at seven days old; became Queen December 8th,
1542, and was crowned at Stirling, September 9th, 1543; carried to
France, 1548; married to the Dauphin, 1558; became Queen of France,
1559; a widow, 1560; returned to Scotland, 1561; married Lord Darnley,
1565; her son (and successor), James VI., born at Edinburgh Castle,
1566; Lord Darnley murdered, February, 1567; Mary married to the Earl of
Bothwell, May, 1567, and was compelled to abdicate in favor of her
infant son. She escaped from Lochleven Castle, lost the Battle of
Langside, and fled to England, 1568. She was beheaded February 8th,
1587, at Fotheringay Castle, in the forty-fifth year of her age, almost
nineteen years of which she passed in captivity.

"Puir Mary was born and was cradled in tears,
Grief cam' wi' her birth, and grief grew wi' her years."

In the crown-room are to be seen the regalia of Scotland, consisting of
the crown, scept