sent him as envoy extraordinary, on a mission to Turkey, to settle some matter of dispute between Russia and that nation. When he arrived at Constantinople, he was ushered into the presence of the Turkish nobleman, with all the formality, pomp, and style so peculiar to that people. Interpreters acted between them, and in a short time the whole matter was amicably settled. The conference ended, Keith was about to withdraw, when the Turkish nobleman sprang forward and seized him by the hand, exclaiming in the genuine vernacular-" A mon, I'm raal glad to see ye, I ken'd ye fine when ye was a callant, we baith cum frae ae place, for my faither was bellman o' the lang toon o' Kirkaldy."

I was now on the scene of the border feuds. We passed Branxholm Hall, celebrated as the scene of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," one tower of which remains as perfect as it was hundreds of years ago. Near this is another tower, now in ruins, once the stronghold of the renowned "Johnny Armstrong," celebrated in border song and story.

We passed Netherby Hall, the residence of Sir James Graham-an estate celebrated in the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Farther on a little

way, we saw the place where stood for a time a large tent

used as a Free Church. The fanded proprietor having refused to sell the people a piece of ground on which to erect a church, they put up a tent on the highway, where for a long time religious services were regularly held.

After a ride of twenty-one miles, I arrived at Langholm, the first village of any note after crossing the border. Here I left the coach, and having procured a gig, I crossed the country to New Castleton. In doing so I passed over a Scottish moor, the first I had ever seen, though I had read and heard much of them. It was truly a bleak and dreary tract of country. Far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but bog and moss, fern and heather-not a single human habitation for ten miles. It was stocked with large flocks of sheep, which managed to procure a subsistence amid this sterility.

In many places the turf had been dug away for some depth and dried for fuel. For this purpose it is cut with the spade into blocks, like bricks in shape, but of much greater size, and exposed to the sun until it becomes hardened, when it is drawn. home and forms an excellent substitute for coal. As it costs nothing to the peasantry, but the labor

of cutting and drying, it is also a most economical fuel. I felt for the first time the force of the poor beggar-man's expression:

"Cold blows the wind across the moor,

The dreary moor, that I have passed ;"

for although in a season when in America we have warm weather, I had to button my overcoat close to my chin, and, notwithstanding all precautions, was nearly frozen ere I arrived at New Castleton.

This village lies on the banks of the romantic Liddle, one of the prettiest streams in Scotland. Here I spent the first night of my visit to my native land, and enjoyed the Scotch hospitality of one whom I shall long remember.

I next proceeded to Earlstown, in Berwickshire, where I spent, in the house of a venerable uncle, since gone to his home on high, my second night in Scotland.

Earlstown.

THOMAS THE RHYMER, & c.

"Sweet scenes of youth, to faithful memory dear,
Still fondly cherished with the sacred tear,
When in the softened light of summer skies,
Full on my soul life's first illusions rise!

Sweet scenes of youthful bliss, unknown to pain!

I come to trace your soothing haunts again."

THIS is the town where I was born. He who, after eighteen years of absence in a foreign land, returns to his native shores, to his native village, to the house in which he was born, must feel an enthusiasm and an interest such as but few earthly scenes can excite. As the names of places were mentioned to me by the driver, in the immediate vicinity of this sacred spot, names which were familiar to me as household words, I felt a mental excitement almost beyond control. These feelings were greatly increased when I stood at last in the place itself. As I saw the home in which I spent my days of childhood, and round whose old walls. I had gamboled in all the frolicksome glee of

thoughtless innocency, a flood of recollections, many of which had been entirely obscured, rushed vividly back upon me, and I could imagine myself once more the child I had been twenty years before.

"Thou spot of earth, where from my bosom
The first weak tones of nature rose,
Where first I cropped the stainless blossom
Of pleasure, yet unmixed with woes;
Where, with my new-born powers delighted
I tripped beneath a mother's hand-
In thee the quenchless flame was lighted
That sparkles for my native land."

In a retired village like this, the arrival of one from America is a marked era in its history, and I soon found myself the object of the kindest attentions.

On Sabbath I attended service in the United Presbyterian Church—a singular antiquated edifice, built of rough stone. The primitive simplicity of the internal arrangements contrasted curiously with the sumptuous elegance of our American places of worship. I passed up the aisle over the clay floor to an old-fashioned, straight-backed, uncushioned pew, which according to our notions would be considered both antiquated and uncomfortable. A high pulpit projected from one side of the church, in front of which stood the precen