Then, turning to the right, you come upon a stately esplanade, and not without a feeling of surprise after a few days' walking by yourself. For here all is life, gaiety, and fashion. Long rows of handsome houses, of clean, light-coloured sandstone, with glittering windows and ornamental balconies, all looking out on the broad, heaving sea. In front, from end to end, stretches a well-kept road, where seats, fixed at frequent intervals, afford a pleasurable resting-place; and from this a great slope descends to the beach, all embowered with trees and shrubs, through which here and there you get a glimpse of a gravelled path or the domed roof of a summer-house. And there, two hundred feet below, is the Spa--a castellated building protected by a sea-wall, within which a broad road slopes gently to the sands. You see visitors descending through the grove for their morning draught of the mineral water, or assisting the effect by a 'constitutional' on the promenade beneath; while hundreds besides stroll on the sands, where troops of children under the charge of nursemaids dig holes with little wooden spades. And here on the esplanade elegant pony barouches, driven by natty little postilions, are starting every few minutes from the aristocratic looking hotel to air gay parties of squires and dames around the neighbourhood. And turning again to the beach, there you see rows of bathing-machines gay with green and red stripes, standing near the opening of the valley, and now and then one starts at a slow pace laden with bathers to meet the rising tide. And beyond these the piers stretch out, and the harbour is crowded with masts, and two steamers rock at their moorings, waiting for 'excursionists:' the whole backed by the houses of the Old Town rising picturesquely one above the other, and crowning the castle heights.
Nearly an hour passed before I left that agreeable resting-place, whence you get the best view of Scarborough and its environment. Of all the strollers I saw none go beyond what appeared to be a conventional limit; Nature without art was perhaps too fatiguing for them. In the whole of my walk along the coast, I met but two, and they were young men, who had ventured a few miles from head-quarters for a real walk on the cliffs.