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dogmatic, but rather less so than popular and practical. Of cathedrals, old and dim, of masses, chants and processions, the pomp and circumstance of a magnificent ritual, they have none.* But of old and glorious memories, solemn temples among the woods and hills, hallowed grave-yards, blessed sacraments, and national enthusiasm, they have abundance. Their religion is a part of the soil. It is indigenous to the country. It grew up among the mountains, was nursed by wizard streams,' and 'led forth' with the voice of psalms, among the green pastures of the wilderness.' Somewhat forbidding at first, like the rough aspect of the country, it appears equally picturesque and beautiful, when really known and loved. It is the religion not of form but of substance, of.deep inward emotion, not of outward pretension and show. Neither is it a sickly sentimentalism which lives on poetic musings, and matures only in cloistered shades and moonlight groves; but it is a healthy, robust principle which goes forth to do and to suffer the will of Heaven. Its head and heart are sound, and its works praise it in the gate. Beautiful as the visions of fancy, it is yet strong as the everlasting hills among which it was reared. In a word, it is the religion of faith and love, the religion of the old puritans, of the martyrs and confessors of primitive times. Welling out forever from the unstained fountains of the Word of God, it has marked its course over the fair face of Scotland, with the greenest verdure, the sweetest flowers.

* This is spoken, of course, of the great body of the people.

Scotland is naturally divided into Highlands and Lowlands. The former includes, besides the various groups of islands on the north and northwest coast, the counties of Argyle, Inverness, Nairn, Ross, Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness, with portions of Dumbarton, Stirling, Perth, Forfar, “Aberdeen awa," Banff and Elgin, or the more northerly regions of the country, protected and beautified by the mighty range of the Grampians, commencing at the southern extremity of Loch Etive, and terminating at the mouth of the Dee on the eastern coast. The Highlands again are divided into two unequal portions by the beautiful chain of lochs, or lakes running through the GlenmoreNan-Albin, or Great Glen of Caledonia, forming some of the wildest and richest scenery in the world. To the north are the giant mountains of Macdui, Cairngorm, Ben-Aven and Ben-More, while nearer the Lowlands, rise the lofty BenLomond. and the hoary Ben-Awe. Under their shadows gleam the storied lochs, the wild tarns and trosachs, whose picturesque and romantic beauties have been immortalized by the pens of Burns, Scott, and Wilson.

To the south and east of the Grampian range, and running parallel to them, you discover a chain of lower and more verdant hills, bearing the well known and poetical names of the Sidlaw, Campsie and Ochil hills. These are divided by the fertile valleys of the Tay and Forth. Between them and the Grampians lies the low and charming valley of Strathmore. The "silver Tay," one of the finest

rivers in Scotland, rises in Breadalbane, expands into lake Dochart, flows in an easterly direction through the vale of Glendochart, expands again into the long and beautiful Loch Tay, which runs like a belt of silver among the hills, whence issuing, it receives various accessions from other streams, passes on in a southerly direction to Dunkeld, famous for its ancient Abbey and lovely scenery, skirts the ancient and delightful city of Perth, below which it forms the Firth of Tay, passes the populous and thriving town of Dundee, and after receiving its great tributary, the Earn, which flows in serpentine windings through the rich vale of Strath Earn, it glides by Taymouth Castle, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Breadalbane, and loses itself in the waters of the Northern Sea. Further north, the rapid Spey, springing from the 'braes of Badenoch' near Lochaber, passes tumultuously through a rough and mountainous country, lingering occasionally, as if to rest itself in some deep glen, crosses the ancient province of Moray, famous for its floods, so admirably described by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, passes Kinrara, "whence, for a few miles, it is attended by a series of landscapes, alike various, singular and magnificent," after which, it moves, with a monotonous aspect, and a steady pace, to the sea. Portions of the country through which this river passes are exceedingly sterile and wild. Covered with the birch, the alder and the pine, varied by rugged rocks and desolate moors, it admirably corresponds to our

notions of Caledonia, in her ancient and primitive integrity.

In the more remote and northern regions of the Highlands, and in most of the Scottish isles, the Gaelic, or Erse, a primitive and energetic tongue, somewhat akin to the Welsh or Irish, is spoken by a majority of the inhabitants. In other parts of Scotland, the English, with a Scottish idiom, is the prevalent speech. The literature of the Gaelic is exceedingly limited, confined chiefly to old ballads, songs and traditionary stories. The poems of Ossian are doubtless the production of Macpherson, their professed translator, while they probably contain a few translated fragments, and some traditionary facts and conceptions afloat among the Highlanders, ingeniously interwoven with the main fabric of the work.

The Highlanders are a simple-hearted, primitive race, mostly poor, and imperfectly educated. Those of them that are wealthy and well educated, are said to be remarkably acute, courteous, and agreeable.

The Lowlands of Scotland comprehend the south and southeastern portions of the country, and though not the grandest and most romantic, are by far the best cultivated, and in some respects the most beautiful. Including the level ground on the eastern coast to the south of the Moray Firth, they stretch along the coast through portions of Perthshire, and the old kingdom of Fife, towards the regions bounded on either side, by the river and the Firth of Forth, and thence to Kircudbright and the English

border, including the principal cities, the most fertile tracts of arable land, the rivers Forth, Clyde and Tweed, and the range of the Cheviot hills, which extend from the north of England towards the northwest, join the Louther hills in the region of Ettrick and Yarrow, with their silver streams,' pass through the southern part of Ayrshire and terminate at Loch Ryan, in the Irish Channel. The Clyde is the most important commercial river in Scotland. Taking its origin among the mountains of the south, not far from the early home of its beautiful and more classic sisters, the Tweed and the Annan, it runs in many capricious windings, in a northwesterly direction, leaps in foaming cascades first at Bonnington, and then at Cora Linn, rushes on through the fine country of Lanarkshire, till, joined by many tributary streams, it passes through the large and flourishing city of Glasgow, bearing upon its bosom the vast commerce and population of the neighboring regions, flows around the walls of old Dumbarton Castle, with its timeworn battlements and glorious memories, in sight, too, of the lofty Ben Lomond, and the beautiful lake which it protects, touches the ancient city of Greenock, expands into the Firth of Clyde, and gradually loses itself amid the picturesque islands which adorn the western coast of Scotland.

Were it possible, by placing ourselves upon some lofty elevation, to take in at one glance, the whole of this varied landscape of lake, river, and mountain; of tarn, trosach and moor, with verdant vales, and woody slopes between, we should con