A "KEEK" AT SCOTLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

A "KEEK" AT SCOTLAND.

BT MRS. LEO MTER3.

It was not that we visited the "Land o' Cakes " with one eye shut. Not that. But the fact that we had but a brief fortnight in which to see all it has to offer. For though Scotland is Britain, it is distinctively itself ; unalterably Scotch more Jthan British, with a sturdiness of character, climate, and conditions, all its own.

Knowing this, we anticipated our Scotch tour with a fortnight's feeding on "parritch," for there is nothing like assimilating the national dish of a country to help you absorb ''local colour.!' . And by way of being quite "in the picture," I crossed the Tweed in a Scotch plaid kilted skirt, the very tartan of which matched the trousers of the soldiers at Edinburgh Castle! Presto! I felt clannish on the spot! The male members of our party were most successfully Scotch in spirit: imbibing their local colour" with the same unerring instinct which guides astute travellers to drink beer in Germany, wine in France, and tea in India and Japan. Whisky is Scotland's "vin du pays;" it has been said that "the Scotch peasant when he is not tipsy is intellectual! and that there is no occasion on which he is not ready for theological disputation." However that may be, I have yet to meet a stupid Scotsman. He may be shrewdly silent, canny, —but—he is brainy. He says little, but says that little strong. Puncture. him with a hatpin and He will spurt oatmeal and the Bible! A steady diet of generations of porridge and " haggis," of Shorter Catechism and Spartanic living have evolved a type of Britisher with brains and brawn, force and enterprise. The Scotch habit of looking upon the whole world as a paying concern can scarcely be regarded as a national vice. Scotchmen can afford to smile indulgently at the arrows of caustic wit aimed at their " dourness '! and their " nearness:" these are merely the superficial defects of their qualities. • . . Their sense of humour—peculiar and penetrating, sui generis—makes it possible for them to laugh at this, - themselves! When a people's characteristics make for that people's progress and distinction, then peculiarities loom as virtues and foibles become national forces. _. -. . Besides, do we not regard those people peculiar who have not the same peculiarities as ourselves? Endless are the anecdotes levelled at the frugality of the Scotchman. The microbe of thrift is in the air. You cannot escape it. ... .In Edinburgh, I took a penny tram and asked the guard to let me down near St. Giles' Church. A townsman seated next me said: " It's but a bit of a way along, m'iim; it's a dear penneth worth you're taking Thus do they add to the gaiety of Nations! One of the finest living pictures is to behold a group of Scotch aristocrats, lairds and clan-chieftains in full regalia. The Greek gods could not have appeared more impressive. I went down before them. Those splendid arrangements of masculinity, powerful and upstanding, with proud heads, depth of chest, length of limb,' and virility writ large on face and form of them. Those brilliant tartans decked with bejewelled belt and powder-horn, brooch and sporran, the deadly dirk and " skiandhu" (stocking-knife), all adorned with silver and cairngorms of great size and splendid colour, make the grandest, most picturesque, the finest and freest costume ever designed to cover and adorn male man. l . Those traditional trappings, so significant of Scotland's history and Scotland's heroism, impressed me deeply and unforgettably. * Surely there is a 1 Scottish society for the preservation of the national,; costume. ... The bagpipes, I know, will sound the last wail of the crack of doom. ! There is no suppressing - them'.-~, , ■ B

\ Strange thing, that the church bells of Edinburgh sound like a medley of ' bagpipes ! ,To ray unattuned car their jangle was like unto no other peal, : but. resounded like bunches of bagpipes glorified! . ; . Of them, Robert Louis Stevenson, that wellbeloved Scotchman, says:—"There are not many uproars in the world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells in • Edinburgh ; a harsh, ecclesiastical tocsin; the outcry of incongruous orthodoxies calling \on every separate conventicler to put up a protest, each in his own kirk, against right-hand extremes and left-hand defections A stately old church stood opposite our hotel; its proximity making me feel comfortably and appropriately Scotch, for I am convinced that everyone in Scotland lives near a kirk . / . : To comprehend beneath the surface of Scottish life and character, one must be able to disentangle the difficult questions of kirk lore, and know its ; finest, nicest distinctions. For the life, | literature, and institutions of Scotland are I cemented in the history of its Church. And for that John Knox stands • supremely its messenger. Of this great Scottish Reformer volumes have been printed. My puny pen halts at a point beyond quoting Carlyle on Knox: "In the History of Scotland," he says, "I can find properly but one epoch : we may say it contains nothing of world interest at all but this reformation of Knox. . . . Scottish literature and thought, Scottish industry, James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott, and Robert Burns— find Knox and the Reformation acting on - the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; I: find that without the Reformation they would not have been." . . . The High-street, Edinburgh, how grimy and motley, but breathing history from its very slums, holds the house of John lvhox,'revered by townsmen and tourist. I will omit praise of Princes-street, and virtuously refrain from describing the " Castle," which, bold and lofty, dominates Edinburgh. Many a time and oft have pens professional and puerile scaled these l heights of description ; so like "-little Mr. Bouncer's" letters home! "I will now tell you," wrote Mr. Bouncer, " something about Merton College. ... Merton College was founded ■ V . . and the remainder of the communication (except the request for money in the postscript was abstracted from the Oxford guide-book! J But to appreciate historic Edinburgh, you need only to cut out the New Town and you will find all the history and romance preserved in the mean Streets between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace; and there is not a step but recalls some heroic deed or touching memory ; not a stone but was drenched again and again with blood and tears ; not a dingy house but is peopled with ghosts of the past. ■ In the Old Town, you go under dank arches and down darkened alleys: the way is so narrow that you can lay a hand on either, wall. These are Edinburgh's slums, unspeakably vile and tragic, called " close " or "wynd." In the narrowest entry you find a . great old mansion with some insignia of its former state, some scrutchen, " some courageous motto," on the lintel. The local antiquary or the small urchiD points out Where famous and well-born people had their lodging, and as you look up out pops the head of a slatternly woman from a grimy window where once sat a noted countess.

Gone are the stirring days when powdered heads and courtly personages peopled these alleys ; to-day, swarms of children with pale wizened faces crowd the noisome courts, and degraded, pitiable men and women fight sullenly for their daily , bread. On them the sun seldom shines ; the dull gloom settles oh dejected windows, decrepit roofs, arid palsied old houses tottering on the verge of cojlanec. *' ~~1 thought of that multi-millioned Scotchman—Andrew Carnegie— of his thousands donated for free libraries and church organs the wide world over. His ear is deaf to the crying need of his own countrymen, his heart closed to the distress that knocks at his very door. ... If to die a poor man is Carnegie's ambition, he could die a great man and a - man well-beloved would he but reclaim and uplift these miserable slums of Edinburgh. . . . The duty that lies near a man's door is that man's noblest message to humanity, but the hubbub of the tumultuous world outside dulls the promptings of the soul. / But like Mulvaney, "I am digressin'." . . . Edinburgh is not the whole of Scotland. There are a handful of Scotch in Glasgow and the north, I do aver! Glasgow. the city of St Mnnjo. >• t.lio C'lifflfiO

of Britain ; given over to the din and dirt of manufacture with immensely tall chimneys smoking incessantly into the skies, it has withal a superb art gallery and a municipal building as beautiful as an Italian palace. Commercialism and art jostle each other in this busy Scotch centre. Industry and trade show two faces, the plain and practical, the lovely and aesthetic. Symbolic, may be, of the Scotch character. Motoring north, through all the lovely wooded country, by burn and river, loch and mountain, views of the beauty and thrall of Scotch scenery joyed us beyond expectation. . . . And the air! oh! the tang of eeftrgy in the air of the Highlands! It dances in your veins and sparkles in your eyes. It paints shell-pink the broad cheeks of Scotch women, and makes you forget their large feet. ■