Later in the
forenoon we again walked out, and went along Argyle Street, and through
the Trongate and the Salt-Market. The two latter were formerly the
principal business streets, and together with High Street, the abode of
the rich merchants and other great people of the town. High Street, and,
still more, the Salt-Market, now swarm with the lower orders to a degree
which I never witnessed elsewhere; so that it is difficult to make one's
way among the sullen and unclean crowd, and not at all pleasant to
breathe in the noisomeness of the atmosphere. The children seem to have
been unwashed from birth. Some of the gray houses appear to have once
been stately and handsome, and have their high gable ends notched at the
edges, like a flight of stairs. We saw the Tron steeple, and the
statue of King William III., and searched for the Old Tolbooth. . . . .
Wandering up the High Street, we turned once more into the quadrangle of
the University, and mounted a broad stone staircase which ascends square,
and with right-angular turns on one corner, on the outside of the
edifices. It is very striking in appearance, being ornamented with a
balustrade, on which are large globes of stone, and a great lion and
unicorn curiously sculptured on the opposite side.
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