The Highland regiments have always been distinguished for their attachment to their native land. This feeling prevails more or less among the inhabitants of all mountainous countries, where the grand and the sublime in nature is so deeply imprinted on the mind in childhood as, in all after years, to exercise a powerful influence upon the imagination. It was for this reason that the national air of the Swiss, the “_Ranz des vaches_,” was prohibited in armies composed partly of natives of Switzerland, its familiar notes bringing back their snow-clad mountains and deep glens so vividly to their remembrance that they could no longer resist the temptation to desert in order to revisit the scenes of their infancy. The same deeply-rooted feeling, as we have seen, led the Highlanders at first to confine their services to the land of their birth, and to break forth into mutiny when an unscrupulous government attempted to break faith with them. Once embarked, however, for foreign service, much as they longed for “the land of the mountain and the flood,” a high principle of honour prevented them from deserting their colours. Patiently they waited till permitted to return, when the love of country sometimes displayed itself in a way that reminds the classical reader of Ulysses’ return to his beloved Ithaca. Thus, when the 42nd Highlanders landed at Port Patrick in 1775, after an absence from Scotland of thirty-two years, many of the old soldiers leaped on shore with enthusiasm and kissed the earth, which they grasped in handfuls. This occurrence would be appreciated by the writers of _Punch_, who, among other quips at the expense of the Scotch and their erratic tendencies, inform us that the North British railway is the only one which yields no returns. As a matter of fact, the exodus from the North is only temporary, and side by side with the love of adventure and gain, an ardent feeling of patriotism is to be found in the heart of every Scotchman. This feeling it is that induces him to toil beneath the burning sun of the tropics, and to visit the most distant parts of the globe in search of that wealth which, once acquired, enables him to “go back” to his native land and enjoy the fruits of his industry.