The bloodstain
on the floor was of course shown us, which the mockers assert is duly
"restored" every winter before the visiting season commences.
Leaving the Palace, we saw Queen Mary's Bath, a quaintly shaped little
building built for her by King James IV, in which she was said to have
bathed herself in white wine--an operation said to have been the secret
of her beauty. During some alterations which were made to it in 1798, a
richly inlaid but wasted dagger was found stuck in the sarking of the
roof, supposedly by the murderers of Rizzio on their escape from the
palace.
[Illustration: CHAPEL ROYAL, HOLYROOD.]
We then visited the now roofless ruins of the Abbey or Chapel Royal
adjoining the Palace. A fine doorway on which some good carving still
remained recalled something of its former beauty and grandeur. There
were quite a number of tombs, and what surprised us most was the large
size of the gravestones, which stood 6 to 7 feet high, and were about 3
feet wide. Those we had been accustomed to in England were much smaller,
but everything in Scotland seemed big, including the people themselves,
and this was no less true of the buildings in Edinburgh.
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