To what extent the characteristic peculiarities of nations are due to diet is a question on which we will not enter. We believe, however, that the matter of food has much to do in determining the character and destiny of a people; and oatmeal being the principal food of Scotland it would seem to be certain that the people who have been made out of it, have been in themselves very remarkable: and have exercised an influence upon the whole civilized world that is unique and singularly potential.
In introducing our subject, it would seem to be proper to say a few words about the “land o’ cakes”—that is, oat cakes. First, there is no word in any language that has in it such perfect music, or around which cling dearer and sweeter associations than the word “Caledonia.”
“Oh Caledonia stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child.”
Under the spell of that name imagination takes wing, and we are back in the springtime of youth. We hear the lark singing in the clear air. We smell the fragrance of the heather. We hear the plow-boy’s whistle, and the mild-maid’s song,—some lively ditty to relieve the tedium of labor, or it may be an old heroic melody, that glimpses some grand page of Scottish story. We hear again the murmur of voices that for long years have sunk into silence. Faces rise before us that had begun to fade from our recollection, scenes in which we formed a part, pass as a panorama, and remain for ever on the deathless page of memory.
To the student of history, Scotland is not a foreign country. The genius of its sons has made it familiar and home like to every lover of pure literature, true patriotism and heroic virtue. In undertaking to speak of it, we are embarassed with our riches.
We are not so perplexed about what we shall say, as how to say it within reasonable limits. These however are but glimpses and glances of Scotland and its people, and may serve to inspire some to seek a fuller and clearer vision, and larger grasp of a theme that can never grow old while men struggle to conquer hostile forces, or strive to win a place in the van of civilization.
Scotland is the land of old romance; where ever the eye turns some scene of classic and storied interest presents itself. There, near Stirling stands that grand modern monument to William Wallace—the hero of Scotland,—the wielder of “Freedom’s sword.” A mile distant is the scene of the battle of Bannockburn where Robert Bruce achieved the deliverance of the Scottish people from the despotism of Edward 1st, and established their independence as a nation.
It is the land where mountain torrents rave down the glens, or tumble from the steep torn into foam; or that murmur softly as they steal along on the level plain under the hazel and the broom, a land whose ruggid coast lines are indented by immense fissures through which the ocean pours its tidal waves to expand into lakes in the interior—lakes which mirror the giant forms of the mountains, and higher up where lonely tarns sleep, and the nests of the sea gull and the eagle remain undisturbed in their solitude. It is a land where magic cloud scenes unfold their sudden splendors in fiery crimson and gold, or whose skies darken in fierce tempests that blot out mountain and plain in a moment in the whirling gusts and eddies of wind and rain. A land, in brief, which has many vicissitudes of climate, from the wild winter storms to the soft and gentle touches of spring—the fervid heats of summer melting into the glowing radiance of autumn sunsets unrivalled for beauty of coloring. One stroke of Scott’s magic pen pictures it thus:
“The Western waves of ebbing day