as were not used to gambling games. It was in consequence of what
took place at this Irvine route, that we were originally led to
think of collecting the letters.


LETTER VIII


Miss Rachel Pringle to Miss Isabella Tod--LONDON.

My Dear Bell--It was my heartfelt intention to keep a regular
journal of all our proceedings, from the sad day on which I bade a
long adieu to my native shades--and I persevered with a constancy
becoming our dear and youthful friendship, in writing down
everything that I saw, either rare or beautiful, till the hour of
our departure from Leith. In that faithful register of my feelings
and reflections as a traveller, I described our embarkation at
Greenock, on board the steam-boat,--our sailing past Port-Glasgow,
an insignificant town, with a steeple;--the stupendous rock of
Dumbarton Castle, that Gibraltar of antiquity;--our landing at
Glasgow;--my astonishment at the magnificence of that opulent
metropolis of the muslin manufacturers; my brother's remark, that
the punch-bowls on the roofs of the Infirmary, the Museum, and the
Trades Hall, were emblematic of the universal estimation in which
that celebrated mixture is held by all ranks and degrees--learned,
commercial, and even medical, of the inhabitants;--our arrival at
Edinburgh--my emotion on beholding the Castle, and the visionary
lake which may be nightly seen from the windows of Princes Street,
between the Old and New Town, reflecting the lights of the lofty
city beyond--with a thousand other delightful and romantic