Near Renton, On The Banks Of The Leven, I Saw A Little Neighborhood,
Embosomed In Old Trees.
"There," said our captain, "Smollet was born." A
column has been erected to his memory in the town of Renton, which we saw
as we passed.
The forked rock, on which stands Dumbarton Castle, was now
in sight overlooking the Clyde; we were whirled into the town, and in a
few minutes were on board a steamer which, as evening set in, landed us at
Glasgow.
I must reserve what I have to tell of Glasgow and Ayrshire for yet another
letter.
Letter XXIV.
Glasgow. - Ayr. - Alloway.
Dublin, _July_ 24, 1845.
I promised another letter concerning Scotland, but I had not time to write
it until the Irish Channel lay between me and the Scottish coast.
When we reached Glasgow on the 18th of July, the streets were swarming
with people. I inquired the occasion, and was told that this was the
annual fair. The artizans were all out with their families, and great
numbers of country people were sauntering about. This fair was once, what
its name imports, an annual market for the sale of merchandise; but it is
now a mere holiday in which the principal sales, as it appeared to me,
were of gingerbread and whisky. I strolled the next morning to the Green,
a spacious open ground that stretches along the Clyde. One part of it was
occupied with the booths and temporary theatres and wagons of showmen,
around and among which a vast throng was assembled, who seemed to delight
in being deafened with the cries of the showmen and the music of their
instruments. In one place a band was playing, in another a gong was
thundering, and from one of the balconies a fellow in regal robes and a
pasteboard crown, surrounded by several persons of both sexes in tawdry
stage-dresses, who seemed to have just got out of bed and were yawning and
rubbing their eyes, was vociferating to the crowd in praise of the
entertainment which was shortly to be offered them, while not far off the
stentor of a rival company, under a flag which announced a new pantomime
for a penny, was declaiming with equal vehemence. I made my way with
difficulty through the crowd to the ancient street called the Salt Market,
in which Scott places the habitation of Baillie Jarvie. It was obstructed
with little stalls, where toys and other inconsiderable articles were
sold. Here at the corner of one of the streets stands the old tower of the
Tolbooth where Rob Roy was confined, a solid piece of ancient
architecture. The main building has been removed and a modern house
supplies its place; the tower has been pierced below for a thoroughfare,
and its clock still reports the time of day to the people of Glasgow. The
crowd through which I passed had that squalid appearance which marks
extreme poverty and uncertain means of subsistence, and I was able to form
some idea of the prodigious number of this class in a populous city of
Great Britain like Glasgow.
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