Newsletter 27th June 2014

[Alastair]

Electric Scotland News

We're going to be using a new company to serve up our web pages when you come browsing to the site.

As we are a very old site it's really impossible to make any significant layout changes. This in turn means we are not such a good site for those that use smart phones and tablets which are getting very popular.

What this change means to you is that when we activate the change over you'll see a different site and different menus. All the content will still be there but you might need to hunt through the new menu to find the information.

This company will be trying out a variety of styles in combination with our advertising to see what's works best and when they have an obvious candidate we'll go with that although it may still change over the months as we fine tune things.

For example, we may change the menus around as we record the most popular pages on the site so that we make it easier to find them. They tell me that drop down menus are much better as that lets us save more space in our header and can display more content.

I've completed the sign up process to trial this system and obviously I'd be interested in getting your feedback. I will say this change has mainly been to help the growing number of smart phone and tablet users but hopefully those using a more normal desktop display will benefit as well.

By the time you read this the new process should have started.

2nd Annual Scottish Clan & Family Caucus

at Grandfather Mountain
Lees - McRae College
July 9 - 10, 2014

COSCA's Annual Grandfather Mountain Clan & Family Caucus is the place where Scottish Clan & Family leaders and volunteers gather to help shape a bright future for the Scottish American community. BE A PART OF IT!

WHEN: July 9 - 10, 2014
WHERE: Evans Auditorium, Lees McRae College, Banner Elk, NC
WHAT: Two days of events: Workshops and a Book Signing on July 9th and the annual Caucus Meeting all day on July 10th.

Check out the Caucus Meeting Program Here

Electric Canadian

Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island
An Account of the Forests, Rivers, Coasts, Gold Fields, and Resources for Colonisation by Commander Edward C. Mayne, R.N., F.R.G.S. (1862).
I'm adding a chapter per day until the book is complete.

You can read this book as we get it up at http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ears/index.htm

Material Culture of the Chilcotin Athapaskans of West Central British Columbia:
Collections in the Field Museum of Natural History by James W. VanStone (pdf)

This report details some of the history of the Chilcotin peoples as well as details of what they have in the Museum.

You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ureo20vans.pdf

Letters from Canada
Written during a residence in Canada in the years 1806 to 1808.

Shewing the present state of Canada, its productions, Trade, Commercial Importance and Political Relations illustrative of The Laws, the Manners of the People, and the Peculiarities of the Country and Climate. Exhibiting also the Commercial Importance of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Cape Breton and their increasing ability in conjunction with Canada to furnish their necessary Supplies of Lumber and Provisions to our West-India Islands by Hugh Gray (1809).

You can read this book at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ia/letters.htm

The Flag in the Wind

This weeks issue was compiled by Clare Adamson in which she discusses Scottish Values. There is also a Synopsis.

You can read this issue at http://www.scotsindependent.org

Electric Scotland

Alexander Murdoch (1841-1891)
A Scottish Engineer, Poet, Author, Journalist

Added a third book called "Scotch Readings: Humorous and Amusing" and we're breaking this down into individual chapters for you to read. We've added two more chapters, "Geordie Shuttle Up The Lum" and "Sandy MacDonald's First-Foot" which you can find at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/poet...doch/index.htm

Thomas Dick Lauder
Hope you are enjoying this book. Started on Volume 2 and you can find these at the foot of the page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...er_thomas1.htm where we've added another couple of chapters now up to Chapter 14.

The Book of Scottish Anecdote
Humorous, Social, Legendary and Historical edited by Alexander Hislop, eighth edition.

Added pages 702 to 736 and the Index which now completes this book.

You can read these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/anecdote

Alan Cunningham
This distinguished poet entered the world under those lowly circumstances, and was educated under those disadvantages, which have so signally characterized the history of the best of our Scottish bards.

Now started on Volume 2 and have added Pages 123 to 214.

You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/musi...gham/index.htm

The Northern Highlands in the Nineteenth Century
Some years ago I published the 2 volumes in this set. Well I have now found a third volume is now available and so have started to work on this.
Added the issue for 1849...

In this year the revolutionary movement on the Continent worked itself out. At Novara the Sardinians, under their King, Charles Albert, were defeated in March by the Austrians under Radetzky, and other ten years had to pass before there was anything like a united Italy. The insurrection in Hungary also failed, the Magyar army, under Gorgey, capitulating in August to the Russians, who had come to the help of Austria. The flight of Kossuth and his associates to Turkey raised an international question, in which Palmerston encouraged the Porte to refuse the surrender of the fugitives. Pope Pius IX., who had fled from Rome in 1848, remained in exile at Gaeta until April 1850, when he was restored by French troops. In India in January 1849 Lord Gough fought the bloody battle of Chillanwallah with the Sikhs, and finally crushed them in February at Gujerat, the conflict ending with the annexation of the Punjaub.

At home the Navigation Laws were repealed, and there was a revived Parliamentary struggle on the policy of Free-trade, which triumphed with the aid of Sir Robert Peel and his friends. The poverty of Ireland was intensified by wholesale evictions, and the Government had to come to the assistance of the District Unions, while suspending the Habeas Corpus Acts. An Encumbered Estates Bill was also brought in for Re land, along with measures authorising advances for drainage and other improvements, and for the encouragement of emigration. In August Queen Victoria paid a visit to Ireland—the first visit of a British Sovereign for twenty-eight years. Riots occurred in Canada, leading to general attention to Colonial subjects. From this time dates a movement for the improvement of Colonial government.

In the Highlands the month of January is memorable for the great floods which destroyed the stone bridge on the Ness, and inundated the valleys of Strathglass, Strathconan, and other districts. The floods are described as “the most unexampled and disastrous ever experienced, according to oral and written testimony, in the North and West Highlands.” They were preceded by long-continued and heavy rains, accompanied by a remarkable prevalence of lightning. In the autumn an outbreak of cholera occurred in the town, to which Dr John Nicol, formerly Provost, fell a victim. Evictions at Solas in North Uist excited much attention.

You can read this issue (No. 8) at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...lands/3no8.htm

Henry Dryerre
Compositor, Poet, Journalist and Musician.

Now added another two Worthies...

More about Stewart Jack
Uncle Tom

You can read these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/poet...erre/index.htm

Songs by John Henderson
John sent in a new song, Wheat Thins

You can read this at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel543.htm

Poets and Poetry of Scotland from the earliest to the present time
Comprising characteristic selections from the works of more noteworthy Scottish poets with biographical and critical notices. By James Grant Wilson (1876)

Now up to page 446.

You can read all about them at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/poets/

Memoirs and Adventures of Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange
Knight, Commander of French Horse, Lord of the Secret Council, and Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh for Mary Queen of Scots (1849)

Have now completed this book.

You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...aldy/index.htm

Samuel Smiles
Newspaper Editor, Author and Social reformer has been added to our Significant Scots page.

This is another biography we're adding. I've added this week...

Chapter IX - Life in Leeds
Chapter X - I Leave Political Life

You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...les_samuel.htm

Book of the Old Edinburgh Club
We have acquired copies of 12 volumes of this club's publications and we're going to add one a week.

Now added volume 5 which includes...

Saint Margaret of Scotland and her Chapel in the Castle of Edinburgh By W. Mora Bryce with illustrations.
The Site of the Black Friars' Monastery from the Reformation to the Present Day By William Cowan With illustrations.
The Old Tolbooth: Extracts from the Original Records By John A. Fairley
Moubray House By Andrew E. Murray With illustrations.
Letters from John Bonar to William Creech concerning the Formation of the Speculative Society By Rev. Henry Paton

You can read these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../edinburghclub

The Scottish School of Painting
By William D. MaKay, R.S.A. (1906).

Now up to Chapter X.

You can get to this book at: http://www.electricscotland.com/art/schoolmdx.htm

Enigma Machine
Now have up puzzle 67.

You can get to this one at http://www.electriccanadian.com/life.../enigma067.htm

The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
Got in her column for 20th June 2014 which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...vie/140620.htm

George Burns, His Times and Friends
By Edwin Hodder (1890). A new book we're starting.

I quote from part of the Introduction...

We are in Wemyss Bay, and here let us tarry awhile.

Near to the shore is a handsome house, standing in the midst of lawns and shrubberies, and backed by a cliff of exquisite beauty, with winding walks leading to terraced gardens.

Upon the lawn in front of the house, there sits an old man of ninety four, singularly handsome, with finely-cut features, clear, penetrating eyes, a massive head, and beautiful snow-white hair. No covering is on his head, and he is accustomed to sit thus in the open air in all kinds of weather; he wears no spectacles; his sight, which a few years ago had become dim, has grown strong and vigorous again. A book is in his hand, for he is still a diligent reader, and enjoys, with a keen relish, the best literature of the day.

But he is not reading now; he is meditating. It has been a life-long habit that has helped his judgment, wisdom, and faith. Many an hour of holy solitude has he spent in that garden overlooking the sea, but rarely has he passed an hour of loneliness there. Every spot within the range of his vision is peopled with memories. As he gazes on that wondrous panorama of sea and mountain, there is another panorama unrolled before him which no other eyes than his can see, and there are voices around him which no other ears than his can hear.

Old age has been called “the holy place of life,” and he is in a vast sanctuary where he holds communion with the living mid the dead, and with the Spirit of the Lord.

From childhood to old age he has been more or less a “dweller by the sea,” and it has never lost its charm for him. He was familiar with it when, as a child, “he laid his hand upon its mane,” and through life it has had the power to “stir his soul with thoughts profound.” Now, in the evening time, as he gazes upon the broad bosom of the Firth, stirred only by a gentle ripple, his thoughts go back to early times, to the day of small things, to his boyish pastimes and the labour of his manhood on the banks of the Clyde. Life to him has been like a river, always in motion, always gliding along to its destiny, sometimes through bowers of beauty and in the midst of delectable mountains, sometimes through weary wastes and dull, monotonous tracks; never rushing into roaring cataracts or plunging into abysmal depths, but always widening as it flowed. And now, in the broad expanse before him, he sees the emblem of that wide ocean upon which, under the pilotage of the Great Captain, he is soon to set sail.

As he gazes, ships pass to and from Glasgow— the city of which he has been one of the “Makers” —and they carry his memory back to the time when he was engaged in mighty shipping enterprises, which helped to revolutionise the trade of the whole country and its relations with other countries. A splendid man of business has he been in his day! He has trodden the pathway which all must take who acquire affluence and position. A “son of the Manse,” by Industry and frugality and the right use of his talents, he has lived to amass wealth and to become the centre of a wide-spreading and beneficent influence. In the midst of the strife and fierce competition of business, he has never forgotten that he is a servant of God, and has never soiled his hands or his garments by contact with anything that could defile. Nor in his most hard-working days have the commercial activities in which he has engaged ever made him neglect the wider claims of life.

A man of cultivated taste, he has always loved and cherished everything that is elegant and refined —the companionship of nature, the beautiful in art, in literature, and in all the products of genius.

A lover of home, he has been wont to throw open all the casements to let in the light and everything bright and beautiful and winsome, so that wife and children and friends might find there the mirth and gladness of earth, as well as the peace and the sweetness of heaven.

Gentleness and affability have been the very spirit of his social life—kindliness and cheerfulness its natural outgrowths. He has retained through life that grand old-fashioned courtesy that will neither hurt another man’s character nor injure his interests, nor give pain to his feelings, and that has caused him to treat rich and poor, his own servants and the noblemen who have dined at his hoard, with equal kindness and consideration.

You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/burns/index.htm

Highlands of Scotland in 1750
Found this wee book which is packed with a variety of information on the Highland clans.

This is a small but very interesting wee book which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...00langgoog.pdf

Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland
From 1688 to 1746 by Charles MacKay LL.D. (1861)

PREFACE

The groundwork of the following selection from the Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland, is a little volume published by Messrs. Griffin and Co. of Glasgow, in the year 1829, under the title of “Jacobite Minstrelsy—with notes illustrative of the text—and containing historical details in relation to the House of Stuart from 1640 to 1784.” Ten years previously the Ettrick Shepherd had published his first series of “Jacobite Relics,” and had followed up the subject in 1821, by a second volume. Hogg’s collection, though interesting, was untrustworthy. He made no distinction between "the Cavaliers and the Jacobites, and none between English, Scottish, and Irish songs, though his volumes purported to contain only Scottish Relics. In addition to this, he admitted many modern songs and ballads —even some written by himself—into a collection which could have but little value, unless it justified its title. To inflate into two volumes a work that would have been greatly better in one, he added seventy-eight “Whig songs” that had no proper place in a Jacobite collection; and worse than all, he admitted effusions that had no more reference to Jacobitism, or the cause of the Stuarts, than to the siege of Troy. Among many that might be cited are the well known South Sea Ballad, “In London stands a famous hill,” and the equally well known lines—

“There was a Presbyterian cat,
Was hunting for his prey.
And in the house he catched a mouse
Upon the Sabbath day.”

An idea of the Shepherd’s humour, as well as of his editorial fitness for his task may be gathered not only from the character of the pieces he admitted into his book, but from the notes which he appended to them. With regard to “The Devil’s in Stirling,” he says, “This ballad appears from its style to be of English original—the air is decidedly so; but as I jot it among a Scots gentleman's MS., and found that it had merit, I did not choose to exclude it.” In a note to “Freedom’s Farewell,” he says, “I inserted this song on account of its stupendous absurdity.” Of his own song, “Donald Macgillavry,” which he inserted as a genuine relic, he says, “This is one of the best songs that ever was made." To another—“The Thistle of Scotland”—he appends the note—“This is a modern song, and the only one that is in the volume to my knowledge. It had no right to be here, for it is a national, not a Jacobite song; but I inserted it out of a whim to vary the theme a little!”

The collection published by Messrs. Griffin, was of much greater value, and less pretension, and was conscientiously and carefully edited by the late Robert Malcolm of Glasgow. As it did not profess to be exclusively devoted to the Jacobitism of Scotland, but included that of the British Isles in general, it admitted a few English as well as Irish effusions; but these were not in sufficient number to give anything like an .adequate idea of the character, either of the English or the Irish Jacobite Muse of the period.

The design of the present volume—more limited than that of either of its predecessors—was to collect the Jacobite Minstrelsy of Scotland only. The task of the Editor was principally confined to the elimination of the Cavalier ballads and songs—most of them of a date half or quarter of a century earlier than the Revolution of 1688, when Jacobitism became the name of a party in the State—and of the few English and Irish ballads that had found their way among the Scottish ones. He also endeavoured to distinguish the songs and ballads produced by the Jacobite bards and rhymers who were contemporaries of the actors in the two Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and who witnessed the events which they celebrated or deplored—from the posthumous Jacobitism of such poets as Burns, Scott, Allan Cunningham and others, written three-quarters of a century afterwards. These effusions—good or bad, pathetic or humorous—are arranged chronologically; and all the modem Jacobitism—most of it written by men who had no sympathy with the cause, but who saw the beauty of its sentimental side as a vehicle for poetry—is inserted as an Appendix.

Several ancient songs and ballads, not included in other collections, appear in this; and although the volume does not claim to be a complete and exhaustive gathering of all the poetical disjecta membrae of the Jacobite sentiment of the last century—for such a work would be both voluminous and wearisome,— it will, the Editor believes, be found to afford a fair and sufficient history of the time, as written by contemporary singers, at a period when the ballad and song performed more important functions than they do now, and supplied both to the urban and the rural population, the literary and political element now provided by newspapers and leading articles. A volume of English Jacobite Minstrelsy collected upon the same principle, might be found equally if not more curious, as a contribution to the history of an important struggle long happily ended.

London, September 1860.

You can download this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/jacobite.htm

Memoirs of John Ker (Crawford)
An old text with s written as f. (pdf)

Added this to our Clan Crawford page at http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...c/crawfor.html

Memorial of the Clan Shaw
By William G. Shaw (1871).

Added this to our Clan Shaw page at http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/stoz/shaw.html

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie Knight
By John Willcock M.A.B.D. Lerwick (1899). Added this book to our page on him in our Significant Scots section at
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...art_thomas.htm

Clan Leslie International
Got in a copy of their May/June 2014 newsletter which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...eint/index.htm

Scot Family
Some information and a plea for translation. You can read this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...icles/scot.htm

Sir James MacKintosh
Came across an article about him which I've added to his page. Also found a review of the 2 volume publication on his memoirs and so provided a link to the review and both volumes.

You can to these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tosh_james.htm

The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore
Found a review of a two volume publication about him and so have added this to his page and a link to the publication.

You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...oore_john1.htm

The General Report of the Agricultural State, and Political Circumstances of Scotland (1814).
Found this set with 2 of the 3 volumes of the actual report and all 3 volumes of the Appendix. You can read these at
http://www.electricscotland.com/agriculture/index.htm

Ancient Castles and Mansions of Stirling Nobility
Described and illustrated by J. S. Fleming (1902). I added this book to the foot of our Stirlingshire page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/stirlingshire/

An Address to Highlanders respecting their Native Gaelic
Showing its and the Broad Scotch's Superiority over the Artificial English for the Family and the Social Circle, and also for Lyric Poetry by Archibald Farquharson (1868)

Gentlemen of the Press,

Aware of your great powers, I stand before your bar to plead, that ye may plead for my countrymen, that they may be taught first to read their mother tongue, which would not only be the most rational, but also the most natural way of teaching them.

What an encouragement would it be to children to find their mother tongue in their lessons—the very words they heard from her lips and their playmates. How different from groping their way in the dark, in reading a language they know nothing about. In the former case their judgment would not only be in exercise, but would also assist and help to keep them right; whereas in the latter case their judgment would give them no aid, the whole depending upon their memory.

Were they thus taught first to read the Gaelic, and then to commence with the English alphabet and the English pronunciation, and when reading, to translate every word into Gaelic, it would not only exercise their memory, but their judgment also, and encourage them to persevere, seeing they were enabled to master the difficulties, being aided by one another as well as by the teacher.

Is there no native Scotchman also that will stand at your bar to plead for his mother tongue? Is that not the tongue, gentlemen, that many of you heard from your mother’s lips, and that soothed you in the days of your childhood ? And ought you not to have the natural instinct to plead for it yourselves?—to plead that the Broad Scotch should be the first language taught in every part of Scotland, except where the Gaelic is spoken; and when they could read their mother tongue, to commence at once with the English alphabet and the English pronunciation, and when reading it to translate every word into broad Scotch, such as have, hae; to, sae; of, o’; with, wi, &c.

Before the time of the singing of birds shall ever dawn upon Scotland, the Scotch must not only return to their native tongue but to their native melodies also. Is it not a fact that there are no songs listened to in the city of London with so much pleasure as the Scotch. I would not be surprised although the native language and the native melodies of Scotland are destined to give songs of praise to every part of the world where the English language is spoken.

You can read this address at http://www.electricscotland.com/gaelic/address.htm

A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch
With an Introductary chapter on the Poetry, Humour, and Literary History of the Scottish Language and an Appendix of Scottish Proverbs by Charles MacKay LL.d. (1888)

PREFACE

The original intention of the Editor of this work was to make it a guide to the better comprehension by English readers of the immortal works of Robert Burns and Walter Scott, and of the beautiful Scottish poetry to be found in the ancient and modem ballads and songs of the “North Countrie,”—and not only to the English but to all other admirers of Scottish literature, where it differs from that of England, and to present to them in accessible and convenient form such words as are more poetical and humorous in the Scottish language than in the English, or are altogether wanting in the latter. The design gradually extended itself as the compiler proceeded with his task, until it came to include large numbers of words derived from the Gaelic or Keltic, with which Dr. Jamieson, the author of the best and most copious Scottish Dictionary hitherto published, was very imperfectly or scarcely at all acquainted.

“Broad Scotch,” says Dr. Adolphus Wagner, the erudite and sympathetic editor of the Poems of Robert Bums, published in Leipzig, in 1835, “is literally broadened,—i.e., a language or dialect very worn off, and blotted, whose original stamp often is unknowable, because the idea is not always to be guessed at” This strange mistake is not confined to the Germans, but prevails to a large extent among Englishmen, who are of opinion that Scotch is a provincial dialect of the English,—like that of Lancashire or Yorkshire,—and not entitled to be called a language. The truth is, that English and Lowland Scotch were originally the same, but that the literary and social influences of London as the real metropolis of both countries, especially after the transfer of the royal family of Stuart from Edinburgh to London, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, favoured the infusion of a Latin element into current English, which the Scotch were slow to adopt.

In the year 1870, the author contributed two papers to Blackwood8 Magazine on “The Poetry and Humour of the Scottish Language.” Those papers are here reprinted with such copious additions as have extended the work to more than treble its original dimensions. The whole has undergone careful revision and emendation, and will, it is hoped, be found to contain not only characteristic specimens of the peculiar humour, but of the abounding poetical genius of the ancient and modem authors who have adorned the literature of Scotland from the days of Barbour, Douglas, and Montgomery to those of Allan Ramsay, Robert Bums, and Walter Scott, and down to our own times.

November 1887.

You can download this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/cult...and_scotch.htm

And Finally...

More from the Book of Scottish Anecdote...

WHAT A MAN CAN LIVE ON

In 1840, some experiments were instituted in the Glasgow prison on the diet of a selected number of the inmates. The persons were fed on the following fare:-

For breakfast, each had eight ounces of oatmeal made into porridge, with a pint of buttermilk; for dinner, three pounds of boiled potatoes with salt; for supper, five ounces of oatmeal porridge, with one half pint of buttermilk. At the end of two months they were all in good health, each person had gained four pounds weight, and they liked the diet, the cost of which, including the cooking, was twopence three-farthings per day. Other ten men were fed for the same time solely on boiled potatoes and salt; each had two pounds for breakfast, three pounds for dinner, and one pound for supper. They gained three and a half pounds each; and they declared that they preferred this fare to the ordinary diet of the prison. Twelve others were fed on the same allowance of porridge and milk for breakfast and supper as the first ten; but for dinner they had soup containing two pounds of potatoes to each, and a quarter of a pound of meat. At the end of two months they had lost in weight one and a quarter pounds each, and they all disliked this diet; tbe expense of each daily was threepence seyen-eighths. Twenty others had tbe same breakfast and supper, with one pound of potatoes for dinner, and half a pound of meat. They preserved good health, but decreased in weight, and preferred the ordinary diet of the prison. The expense was fourpence seven·eighths each. In these cases, perhaps, the previous habits and tastes of the prisoners had some influence, yet it appears that the six pounds of potatoes daily was a better diet than the smaller quantities of soup or animal food.

THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING

A few years ago, while the Cygnet steamer was sailing down Lochlochie, a soldier's wife on board was delivered of twins. What rendered the circumstance remarkable, was the fact that a few years previous, at the same place, in the same steamer, under the same captain-Captain Campbell a circumstance precisely similar had occurred. On the first of these occasions, the mother was a Mrs Campbell, and it was thought an extraordinary coincidence, that at the very time of her delivery a piper on board was playing vigorously, "The Campbells are coming!" quite ignorant, of course, of the additional little passengers that had made their appearance.

A HIGHLAND" NATURAL

A correspondent of the Inverness Courier lately wrote (1874):-

There is at this moment sitting in our kitchen a poor, half-witted natural, "Lachlan Gorach," from Mull, whose conversation is always garnished with "Davie Gellatly" like snatches of quaint song. Sometimes the rhyme is in English, and sometimes in Gaelic, and frequently has no connection whatever with what may be the immediate subject of conversation. On going up to have a crack with him a few moments ago--for poor Lachlan is, in a way, a great favourite of ours-he returned our friendly greeting of, "Well, how are you, Lachlan?" with a hearty shake of the hand and a bow, that, for close proximity of forehead to the ground and duration, might have graced the Court of Louis XIV., and immediately Oll regaining the erect position, struck to an air that was probably ongInal, into the following verse, which we took down on the spot:-

"First the heel and then the toe,
That's the way the polka goes:
First the toe and then the heel,
That's the way to dance a reel;
Quick about and then away.
Lightly dance the glad Strathspey.
Jump a jump, and jump it big
That's the way to dance a jig;
Slowly, smiling as in France,
Follow through the country dance.
And we'll meet Johnnie Cope in the morning."

It was very amusing. Where he picked up the uncouth rhyme we do not know, and it was bootless to inquire. Having ordered him some dinner, we bade him good-bye, when we caught hold of the following verse of Lachlan's favourite ditties as we disappeared:-

"Kilt your coaties. bonnie lassie,
As you wade the burnie through;
Or your mother will be angry
If you wet your coaties now."

Poor Lachlan, always cheerful and perfectly harmless, is a welcome guest at every fireside throughout the many districts which he periodically peregrinates.

HIGHLANDERS IN NEW ZEALAND

The aristocracy of New Zealand, in fact, may be said to be the Highlanders. I stayed with the grandson of a Highlander, for example, who has half·a-million of sheep. I saw another Highlander, who is a member of Parliament, and who went there with nothing, I believe, and has one hundred and twenty-five thousand sheep. I heard of two Highlanders who took their stand upon two mountains in New Zealand, and each asked government to give them a lease of the land that they saw from the tops of these respective mountains. They obtained their wish, and are now both wealthy men. From a New Zealand paper to·day I see the Highlanders are so successful, that a Chinaman making application for some employment called himself Macgillivray. The people were astonished. They had never heard a Chinaman called Macgillivray, and they asked what the meaning of it was. The reply of the Chinaman was, that there was no use of anyone making application unless he were a Scotsman.

And that's it for this week and I hope you all have a good weekend.

Alastair