Land of green pine and blue harebell,
Of furze and fern of various hue;
Of deep ravine and cavern hoar,
Of jutting crag, and dangerous shore.
2. Land of the pibroch and the plaid;
Land of the henchman and the raid;
Land of the chieftain and the clan,
Of haughty laird and vassal man.
Land of tall cliff and lonely dell,
The eagle's perch, the outlaw's cell.
Land of the brave, the fair, the good;
Land of the onslaught, foray, feud.
3. Land of the long, long wintry night,-
The dancing, streaming, northern light;
The misty morn, the brightening noon,
The dewy eve, the radiant moon:
Land where the patriot loves to roam
Far distant from his native home;
And yet, on every foreign strand,
Still sighing for his native land!
4. Land of basaltic rock and cave,

Where tempests howl and surges rave;
Land of the heathery hill and moor,
Of rude stone cot, and cold clay floor;
Of barefoot maid, and tartaned boor;
Land of the eagle's airy nest

On Glencoe's cliffs, or Nevis' crest.

5. Land of the lochs that winding sweep Round mountain's base and headland steep. Land of the thousand isles that sleep "Twixt lowering cloud and murmuring deep. Land of the streams and lakes that feed The myriads of the scaly breed;

Land where the torrents leap from high,
And o'er their rocky barriers fly
In sheets of foam, with thundering roar,
Down through the dark ravine to pour.

R.

LESSON 12.-AMONG THE HEBRIDES.

1. Leave the great city and fly northward; through the green English counties, over the dark manufacturing towns, across the border, past the braes of Yarrow, in and out of the city of din and smoke upon the banks of the Clyde, among the lochs and streams, till you are standing, far from the haunts of men, on the basaltic cliffs of Skye.

2. See the mighty waters of the Minch and the Atlantic breaking around you, while mountain upon mountain rises solemnly on every side, and the rain-cloud rests above you. Then look westward, far out into the sea, where, like a huge serpent crawling northward, and scarcely to be made out from the wild waste of water, the Hebrides stretch in utter loneliness, visited by no passing ship, and knowing little of the world of man.

3. Then suffer us to fly with you across the thirty miles of water, till we have set you down on the very summit of Ben Eval, a lonely mountain rising in the midst of these far-off Isles of the Sea.

4. Now look around you! It is one of those dark, dim days which occur here five out of every seven days of the week; and you have above your head, not the soft blue of southern climes, but a sober, beautiful gray of the vapour or under-heaven.

5. The air is full of light; not golden, not yellow and dazzling, but strange silvern light. Gazing below, what

do you see? First, on every hand, the sea, with its unrest that will never be calmed.

6. Then close beneath you, tracts of green land, rising into purple knolls, broken with great boulders or rocks, and so divided with sea-fiords, fresh-water lakes, stagnant lochans or pools, and water in all shapes and forms, that the land seems floating land-patches of green drifting on the ocean. Far away southward the land stretches till it mingles with the ocean, and far up northward till it rises into the high mountains of Lewis.

7. Dreary, silent, homeless, sea-surrounded, a dark mass of mingled land and water-such is the prospect. Why have we wafted you to this cold wilderness?

8. Wander down into the valleys, pass from island to island, from lake to lake. Is all dull still? Here is a lochan; how ugly it looked at a little distance! and yet it is a nest of perfect loveliness, with its yellow and white lilies, its bright floating leaves and its silvern leaping trout.

9. Where are you now? On the verge of the Black Lake,-miles long, and so shallow that the rocks at the bottom jut everywhere above the surface. What a whirr of wings! The wild geese are rising in one white cloud, till they vanish into the sky. Now you pass over to the western coast and wander on the sands. You scoop the sands in your hands and find that they are powdered shells, with here and there a tiny shell glittering like a pearl.

10. Stand on the summit of Ben Eval again and strain your eyes towards the western coast. You see the faint gleams of growing corn and the bright green of the potato, and the blue peat-smoke rising from a tiny hamlet in the hollow. You may behold, too, the dark figures of the kelp-makers, feeding their fires with the black and slippery weed. You may also make out a spire, and

a white house, perhaps the priest's dwelling or the minister's manse.

11. In the lonely bays of the sea-lochs, in the green hollows of the hills, among the sand-knolls of the western coasts there are dwellings. Here and there you may see a comfortable farm, with sheep and cattle and well-tilled fields. Half-hidden in nooks are groups of mud-huts, straw-roofed, with little patches of corn hard by, and pretty fishermen's huts, with strong red-sailed skiffs and nets on the beach before them.

12. Loch Uribol is one of the wildest of the strange fiords which cut into the Hebrides on the eastern side. These inlets are vast narrow arms of the sea, having numberless branches this way and that, like the twisted mainstalk and many branches of a piece of sea-tangle. A boatman, rowing up Loch Uribol, would reach the head in about ten miles; but a stranger would wander in and out of false openings till he gave up the navigation in despair.

13. Fifteen miles from Uribol, as you sail southwards along the coast, opens Loch Storport, and at the head of the loch stands a village, upon which the herring-fishers descend like a swarm in the fishing season. The air is full of the smell of fish, the bones of boiled fish are lying everywhere upon the ground, fish are drying upon the beach, the boats at the quay are full of fish, gulls in thousands are darting about with harsh screams.-St. Paul's Magazine.

LESSON 13.-RIVERS.

1. Like the lakes, the rivers are generally in narrow gorges. There is an absence of the broad, open river valleys and extensive basins which mark the physical

features of England. Rising at a great elevation, and fed by heavy rains, snows, and extensive lake basins, the Scotch rivers usually have a swift course, and the volume of water which they carry down to the sea is great; but they are navigable only for a short distance from their mouths.

2. North of Glenmore there is no river of any size; south of it the watershed is near the western coast, and the longer rivers except the Clyde all run eastward.

3. The rivers of the Grampians are the Spey, Don, and Dee, which are wholly within the Highlands, and the Tay and Forth, which drain the central mountain district and cross Strathmore, becoming in their lower course Lowland rivers.

4. The Spey is a rapid river 96 miles long and flows through the fertile and well-wooded valley of Strathspey. The Don and the Dee rise near one another in the Cairngorm Mountains; the sources of the latter river are over 4000 feet above the sea level. Their upper courses are through one of the wildest districts of the Grampians; their valleys are separated by hilly country and bordered by mountains, and they enter the sea within two miles of each other. The Queen's Highland residence, Balmoral, upon the banks of the Dee.

is

5. The Tay drains the southern slope of the Grampians, passes through Loch Tay, and receives the waters of several other lakes by its tributaries, of which the Garry is the chief. It becomes navigable at the city of Perth, and forms a long, narrow estuary, deep, but not free from hindrances to ships in the form of sand-banks. its mouth is the large seaport town of Dundee. The current is swift, and the volume of water greater than that of any other river of Britain; the length of the river is 110 miles.

At