Roast meat was formerly seldom seen among farmers in Scotland; and is even now rare, compared with its use among the same class in England. Less than half a century ago, a _mart_ was regularly bought or fattened by the most respectable farmers, and even by many citizens. This was a cow or ox killed and salted at Martinmas for winter provision; a custom which, though not uncommon in England, perhaps, one hundred years ago, has certainly not been followed, except in remote and sequestered districts, or by very old-fashioned farmers within that period. * * * * * Falstaff's "Buck-Basket" has puzzled the commentators; but Dr. Jamieson thus explains it:--_Bouk_ is the Scotch word for a lye used to steep foul linen in, before it is washed in water; the buckbasket, therefore, is the basket employed to carry clothes, after they have been bouked, to the washing-place. * * * * * PLEASURES OF EGYPT. Sweet are the songs of Egypt on paper. Who is not ravished with gums, balms, dates, figs, pomegranates, circassia, and sycamores, without recollecting that amidst these are dust, hot and fainting winds, bugs, mosquitos, spiders, flies, leprosy, fevers, and almost universal blindness.--_Ledyard's Travels._--The same writer also says the people are poorly clad, the youths naked, and that they rank infinitely below any savages he ever saw. * * * * * There cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation, than when the people, to avoid hardships at home, are forced by heaps to forsake their native country.--_Milton._ * * * * * TOBACCO. As the devil is a deceiver, and hath the knowledge of the virtue of herbs, so he did show the virtue of this herb, that by the means thereof they might see their imaginations and visions that he hath represented unto them. * * * * * WHISKY. From official documents it appears that long previous to 1690, there had been a distillery of _aqua vitae_, or whisky, on the lands of Farintosh, belonging to Mr. Forbes, of Culloden. * * * * * TRAVELLING INCENTIVES. If there be a sudden accession of fortune, the earliest use of it is in passing over to the continent; if misfortunes occur, the first suggestion is that of seeking solace in another land. The assumption of the _toga virilis_ by our youth, may be practically translated, the putting on of the travelling cloak. Marriage, instead of being the means of more extended family union, is the plea for immediate separation; and the newly-married pair drive from the church to the packet-boat. If the elders of a family are snatched away by death, the first idea which occurs to their successors, is that of distant removal from home. Sorrows are not endured, but fled from; and misfortune becomes the signal for dispersion to those who survive it.--_Q. Rev._ * * * * *