[1] The Highlander is no equestrian--he can trot on his feet fifty or sixty miles a day, with much greater ease to himself, and in a shorter space of time, than he could ride the same distance. A gentleman once sent his Highland servant a message on urgent business, and to enable him to execute it sooner, gave him a horse. Donald did not return at the time expected, nor for long after it; at last his master, who was watching anxiously for him, discerned him at a long distance on the road on foot, creeping at a snail's pace, and _towing_ the reluctant quadruped by the bridle. On being objurgated for his tardiness, he replied "he could have been here twa three hours, but he has taight wi' ta peast," _i.e._ delayed, or impeded by the horse. Washington Irving is the only describer of your "American Teutonic Race," and this, my debut in the New World, put me down in the midst of that worthy people as unsophisticated as possible. It is _refreshing_, as his little Lordship of Craigcrook used to say, in this land where every man is a philosopher, and talks of government as if he had been bred at the feet of Machiavel, to meet with a specimen of genuine simplicity, perfectly aware of his own ignorance in matters which in no way concern him. Your Dutchman is the most unchangeable of all human beings, "_Caelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt_" applies with peculiar force to the Batavian in every clime on the face of the globe. In America, at the Cape of Good Hope, in the congenial marshes of Java, in the West Indies, and at Chinsurhae on the banks of the Ganges, the transmarine Hollander is always the same as in his own native mud of the dams and dykes of Holland,--the same in his house, his dress, his voracious and omniverous appetite, his thrift and his cleanliness.