How can I ask you who have perhaps never left your country except for some pleasant trips on the Continent, to put yourself in my position, if possible, for a moment only, and imagine how I long to kiss the soil, with which are mixed the bones of my mother and other forbears; how I miss the loving embrace of my beloved father, the sweet, expectant, imploring eyes of my widowed daughter, the devoted look of my wife and the kindly affectionate hand-shake of good and devoted friends. Nor can you realize how an Indian loves his country. How can you, of dark, sombre, fog ridden and misty climes, who are born of a chill atmosphere, of treacherously changing weather, who count hours of sunshine and months of darkness and fog and rain and snow and sleet, enter into the feelings of one whose country is a perpetual sunshine, and where universal light reigns--a country where weather is neither treacherous nor continually and rapidly changing, where beautiful dawns, starry nights, moonlit fields, resplendent waters, snow-clad hills and joyous rivers constantly and unremittingly fill one's mind with the sublimity, grandeur and beauty of nature; where one needs no stimulants to make him feel lighter and happier. An Indian needs no alcohol to forget his troubles. He has only to go to the Himalaya, or to the banks of Ganga, Brahmputra, Sindh or their numerous tributaries by which the land is blessed and fertilized. Oh, no! It is impossible for you to understand how passionately an Indian loves his country. He would rather starve in India than be a ruler of men in a foreign climate. For him, India is the land of Gods--the _Deva Bhúmí_ of his forefathers. It is the land of knowledge, of faith, of beatitude--the _Gnan Bhúmí_, the _Dharma Bhúmí_ and the _Punni-Bhúmí_ of the ancient Aryas. It is the land of the Vedas and of the heroes--the _Veda Bhúmí_ and the _Vir Bhúmí_ of his ancestors. Yes, to him, it is the land of lands, the only place where he wishes to live, and more so, where he wishes to die. For a Hindu to die anywhere but in India, is as if he had been damned to hell. He shudders at the idea. To him, it is unthinkable. You may call it foolish, unpractical, sentimental and unprogressive; but there it is--a mighty fact of life into which no foreigner can penetrate. Every Englishman loves his country, its darkness, its fog, its sleet and rain nothwithstanding. Who does not love his country and who does not say: Home, kindred, friends and country--these Are ties with which we never part; From clime to clime, o'er land and seas, We bear them in our heart; But, oh! 'tis hard to feel resigned, When they must all be left behind! --J. MONTGOMERY.