So it is not to be expected that any more interest would be displayed in the language and literature of a country like Scotland, which is notoriously wild and barren and less densely populated and productive than the most ordinary districts of Bengal. Oh, you pusillanimous Highland chiefs and other misters! how long will you tamely submit to such offhanded treatment? Will the day never come when, with whirling sporrans and flashing pibrochs you will rise against the alien oppressor, and demand Home Rule, together with the total abolition of present disdainful British _insouciance_? When that day dawns--if ever--please note this piece of private intelligence from an authorised source: _Young Bengal will be with you in your struggle for Autonomy._ If not in body, assuredly in spirit. Possibly in _both_. I say no more, in case I should be accused of trying to stir up seditious feelings; but, as a patriotic Baboo gentleman, my blood will boil occasionally at instances of stuck-up English self-sufficiency, and the worm in the bud, if nipped too severely, may blossom into a rather formidable serpent! [Illustration: "I AM ADDRESSED BY AN UNDERBRED STREET-URCHIN AS A 'BLOOMING BLACKY!'"] As, for instance, when, in the course of an inoffensive promenade, I am addressed by an underbred street-urchin as a "blooming blacky," and cannot induce a policeman to compel my aggressor to furnish me with his name and address or that of his parents, or even to offer the most ordinary apology. Enough of these rather bitter reflections, however. I omitted to mention that I am also the proprietor (at the same pawnbroker's where I bought my breeches-loader gun) of a very fine second-hand salmon-rod, a great bargain and immense value, with which I hope to be able to catch a great quantity of fishes. For there is, according to young HOWARD, good fishing in a burn adjoining the Manse, so I shall follow King Solomon's injunctions, and not spare the rod and spoil the salmons, though if I should happen to "spoil" my rod, the salmons would inevitably in consequence be "spared." This is a sample of the kind of verbal pleasantries in which, when in exhilarated high spirits, I sometimes facetiously indulge. XXIV _Mr Jabberjee relates his experiences upon the Moors._ I am now an acclimatised denizen of Caledonia stern and wild; which, however, turns out to be milder and tamer than depicted by the jaundiced hand of national jealousy. For, since my arrival at this hamlet of Kilpaitrick, N.B., I have not once beheld any species of savage hill-man; moreover, the adult inhabitants are clothed with irreproachable decency, and, if the juveniles run about with denuded feet and heads, where is the shocking scandal?