Beautiful is New England, resembling as she does, in many of her features, 'Auld Scotia's hills and dales,' and moreover being much akin to her, in religious sentiment and the love of freedom; so that a native of either might well be forgiven for clinging with peculiar fondness to the land of his birth, and, in certain moods of mind, prefering it to all the world beside. Though far away, and even loving the place of his estrangement, he cannot, if he would, altogether renounce those ties which bind him to his early home. A 'viewless chain,' which crosses ocean and continent, conveys from the one to the other that subtle, yet gracious influence, which is quicker and stronger than the lightning's gleam. Let no one then be surprised if a Scotsman in New England, the cherished land of his adoption, should solace his mind with the recollection of early days, and endeavor to set before others the characteristic beauties and excellences of his native country. O Caledonia, stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! What mortal hand, Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand! "Scotland," as one of her own sons has expressed it, "is a wee bit country," but possessed of "muckle pith and spirit." Its surface is rough and mountainous, with beautiful patches of rich arable land along the courses of its streams, and extensive level meadows, called Carses, as the Carse of Falkirk, and the Carse of Gowrie. It is of unequal breadth, being much indented with bays and creeks, and stretches some two hundred and eighty miles in length, reckoning from its most southerly point, the Mull of Galloway, to Dunnet's Head, its most northern extremity. This probably would be a little farther than from "Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat's," the "from Dan to Beersheba" of Scotland. Clustering around its western and northern sides are the Hebrides, the Shetland and the Orkney islands; wild and rocky isles, with rude and primitive inhabitants, constituting the Ultima Thule of Great Britain. In Scotland, a considerable portion of the land is uncultivated, consisting of heathy hills, mountains and moors; and the most of that which is cultivated has been rendered productive by the hand of art and industry. Like Switzerland, it is comparatively a poor country, but has been made rich by the generative powers of mind. Her wealth consists in the brawny arms and vigorous intellects of her sons. The climate is cold and variable, though milder in winter than that of New England, and in summer cooler, and upon the whole, more agreeable, except when dense fogs and long-continued rains prevail.