about five thousand inhabitants, eighteen hundred persons six hundred aged and infirm. Among the twenty-six cases which Mr Inglis saw tried at the sessions here, he saw not one for theft. This holds throughout all Ireland. Theft is a rare crime-robbery almost un known. yet two years since the Trappists settled in this neighbourhood; and (thanks to the superstitions of the country people!) the progress they have made in building the convent, as well as in reclaiming the land, is indeed miraculous. The brethren themselves are between forty and fifty strong; and in such veneration are these holy men held, that an incredible amount of labour has been contributed gratis. The Trappists are almost all of them young men. At present they do not strictly conform to the rules of their order; but the moment their convent is completed, and the necessity for communicating with their fellow-men ceases, they purpose taking upon themselves all the austerities of the order -silence, as the most indispensable and distinguishing. The brethren are almost all of them Irish; the few exceptions being English." Mr Inglis went down the Blackwater to Youghall, a descent rich in varied beauty. Youghall is itself an interesting place, full of old remains and modern capabilities. Here the traveller visited the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh. "The interior of the house is oak wainscoting: and in the drawing-room the chimney-piece Mallow is called a thriving respectable town; yet there Mr Inglis found that seventy-five per cent. of the labouring population had not constant employment, though wages were but eightpence a-day, without food. In the pawnbrokers' shops he saw farming implements pledged, generally for the payment of county-exhibits one of the finest specimens of carving I rates and tithes ! After applauding Lord Arden as a liberal and judicious landlord, Mr Inglis adds, "A very different landlord is Lord Limerick-he draws the uttermost farthing." Here the people were, after the last election, thrown into prison for arrears of rent, because they had given their votes, as they said, for "their clergy and their country," and not as they were ordered by their landlords. These arrears were collected at the chapel doors, and the priest, heading the liberators, released the men punished for voting as their consciences directed. have ever seen. In making some repairs on this house, one of the oldest printed Bibles extant was found built up in the wall. It bears a date only thirty-four years after the invention of printing. The environs of this old house are beautiful, and are remarkable for the exuberant growth of evergreens-myrtles and verbena especially, both of which here attain an extraordinary perfection.” From Youghall our traveller visited Cork,— the Liverpool or the New York of Ireland, with many characteristic features of its own. To this portion of the work we cannot advert; nor to the social condition of the rural population here. The manners of the wild Irish are our immediate object, and not fine cities. Having, we conclude, previously kissed the Blarney-stone, Mr Inglis went by Clonakilty, Skibbereen, and Glengariff, to Kenmare. He found the property of the Marquis of Lansdowne in this part of Kerry in a better condition than it had been represented. In place of the original mud cabins, his Lordship has built comfortable cottages of two rooms with chimneys, and, we presume, windows. The land attached to them was not too dear, and it seems a merciful regulation not to divide it into too minute portions. As the land is gradually emancipated from the leases of the middlemen who scourged this part of the country, the large farms are broken up into small allotments. The tenants have turf at discretion, and the advantage of fishing. Where a large farm could not be cut up into so many portions as the middlemen had made of it, the more respectable of the tenantry were retained, and those that could not be provided for were transferred to the mountains, where they obtained holdings at a very easy rate. Mr Inglis was satisfied with the management of the Duke of Devonshire's property at Lismore, and charmed with the natural beauties of this favoured spot. It does not, however, appear difficult to obtain the character of a good landlord in Ireland. To effect this, a proprietor has only to squeeze his tenantry rather less than his neighbours do theirs. The rents, however, are moderate on this property, cruel ejectments are not practised, and the people have liberty to cut turf at a merely nominal cost. Mr Inglis relates an anecdote of Irish ejectment::-" I am deucedly fatigued this morning,' said an attorney, upon whom a lady called one Monday morning. Yesterday we had some tough work -thirty-eight ejectments to put into effect, and a world of trouble they cost us; egad, so tenacious were some of the people, that we had to pull down the roofs about their ears.' This is heartless work." It is indeed heartless work. In the north of Scotland the roofs were not pulled down; it was found more expeditious and convenient to burn them in Sutherlandshire and the Gruids. A singular establishment has recently arisen in this vicinity. A convent of Trappists is now rearing upon a lonely bog, "apart from all other buildings, itself of immense magnitude, and seem- After seeing the far-famed Killarney, both. ingly placed in the midst of a desert. It is not | Upper and Under Lakes, and Muckross Abbey the traveller went into what is called the wilds of Kerry. I was now, he says, in O'Connell's country: here was the property of Daniel O'Connell, Esq., or the Liberator, as the people called him; there, the property of Charles O'Connell, Esq.; and there, again, the property of another O'Connell but the greater part of the O'Connell property -almost all that of the O'Connell-is held under head landlords; and he is only an extensive middle-man. Near to Cahir-siveen, is the birth-place of the great agitator. It is a ruined house, situated in a hollow near to the road; and when I reached the spot, the driver of the car pulled up, and inquired whether I would like to visit the house. But the driver of my car was not a native of these parts; for be it known to the reader, that O'Connell is less popular in his own country than he is elsewhere. If you ask an innkeeper, or an innkeeper's wife, any where in O'Connell's district, what sort of a man their landlord is? "Och, and sure he's the best o' landlords he takes the childer by the hand, and he wouldn't be over proud to dthrink tay with the landlady." But if you step into a cabin, the holder of which owns Daniel O'Connell, Esq., as his landlord; and if you ask the same question, he'll scratch his head, and say little any way. I reached O'Connell's town, Cahir-siveen, in time for an excellent fish dinner of haddock and mullet; and the three or four hours that intervened between dinner and bed time, I spent in rambling about the environs of the village, and in the neighbouring country. The country around Cahir-siveen is extremely wild, and but very partially reclaimed: and the condition of the people far from being comfortable. I visited several wretched cabins, and found the inmates paying exorbitant rents. Land is not let here by the acre, but by the quantity of land fit to support a cow. I found one man owning land for six cows, paying at the rate of 50s. per cow; and at that time, the price of butter was such, that not more than 40s. could be got for the produce of each cow. Others, I found paying in precisely the same proportion. The greater industry of the peopleand, I may add, the greater intelligence, universal among the Kerry peasantry-help them with their indifferent bargains. I saw, in many of their cabins, beautiful examples of industry--every branch of a family occupied in doing something useful; and I did not address one individual, from whom I did not receive answers that would have done credit to persons of any education; and yet, on asking one individual who had conversed with me readily and sensibly upon many subjects, how many weeks there were in a month, I was answered that there were two. Nature has done much for these peopleeducation little. Walking along a mountain-path, I overtook a girl of about fourteen or fifteen years old-I speak by guess, for it is rarely in this country that a girl can tell her age. She carried a basket, in which were from four to five dozen of eggs. I asked where she had got the eggs?She had been round the country buying them cheap. Where was she taking them to?-She was going to send them, and some dozens more, with Mich O'Sullivan's carts, to Cork. Upon whose account was she buying the eggs?-On her own. On her own account?—Yes. Who gave her the money?—The parson (she was a Protestant) had lent it to her: some time ago, her cousin had sent a basket of eggs with Mich O'Sullivan, to Cork, and he had made three shillings. This was certainly a curious example of enterprise and industry. I returned into the town with the girl, and saw her father: he was a small landholder; and he said, Biddy went, after her day's work was done, and merchandized for herself. The views about Cahir-siveen are interesting-of a wild and solitary character. The mountains jut into the sea on every side; the island of Valentia lies opposite, separated from the main land by a narrow channel; and the small town, enclosed among the brown mountain slopes, seems like a place at the world's end. Marriages in this district are contracted at an earlier age than in any part that I had yet visited. Fourteen and thirteen are common ages for the marriages of girls ; fifteen is not considered at all an early age for marriage; and there are even instances of their having been contracted at so early an age as twelve. Mr Inglis asserts that the priests have an interest in encouraging these early marriages -as the greater part of the priests' dues arise from weddings and christenings, and that they do encourage them-and this he converts into an argument for a stipendiary Catholic priesthood, a favourite idea at present with prudent and moderate Tories. In returning from a ramble among the hills in this vicinity, Mr Inglis "remarked some bog land brought newly into a state of partial cultivation; and upon making some inquiries, he was told that this was done, because no tithe would in future be exigible from it." Tralee, the capital of Kerry, has arisen with greater rapidity into importance and prosperity than any other Irish town, save Belfast. Mr Inglis reserves his most rapturous admiration for the noble Shannon, the finest, the largest, the longest river in the British European dominions, navigable from the sea to Lough Allen, now river, now lake, washing the shores of ten counties, and ending in a magnificent estuary. It was from Tarbert, upon a Sunday morning, that our tourist first beheld the Shannon. He followed its majestic course to Lough Allen with We cannot resist one increasing admiration. extract devoted to the river scenery. It is impossible to ascend by water, from Limerick to the village of Castle Connell, owing to the rapids which intervene but the road, although not running close to the river, commands its banks, and carries the traveller through as lovely a country as the imagination can well picture. In variety and wooded fertility, it is not surpassed by the most celebrated of the English vales, no one of which can boast, as an adjunct to its scenery, so noble a river as the Shannon. Many fine seats lie on the left of the road, towards the river, particularly Mount Shannon, the residence, at least the property, of the Earl of Clare; and glimpses are also caught of several other fine domains and villas,-amongst others, those belonging to the numerous family of Massey. On reaching the village of Castle Connell, my first feeling was admiration; my next, surprise, that I should never before have heard of Castle Connell. It is surrounded by every kind of beauty; and after spending a day in its neighbourhood, I began to entertain serious doubts, whether even Killarney itself greatly surpassed in beauty the scenery around Castle Connell. It is a little village of neat, clean, country houses, situated close to the Shannon, and backed and flanked by noble domains, and fine spreading woods. Just below the village, commence the rapids of the Shannon, of which I had never even heard, until I reached Limerick; and these are of themselves well worth a visit. I hired a little boat to shoot the upper rapid, and take me across; for the scenery is best seen from the Clare side; and I was well repaid for my trouble. A charming walk leads down the opposite bank, through Sir Hugh Massey's grounds; and I do not at this moment recollect any example of more attractive river scenery. The wide, deep, clear river is, for more than a quarter of a mile, almost a cataract; and this, to an English eye, must be particularly striking. It is only in the streams and rivulets of England that rapids are found; the larger rivers generally glide smoothly on without impediment from rocks: the Thames, Trent, Mersey, and Severn, when they lose the character of streams, and become rivers, hold a noiseless course; but the Shannon, larger than all the four, here pours that immense body of water which, above the rapids, is forty feet deep, and three hundred yards wide, through and above a congregation of huge stones and rocks, which extend nearly half a mile; and offers not only an unusual scene, but a spectacle approaching much nearer to the sublime, than any moderate-sized stream can offer, even in its highest cascade. None of the Welsh water-falls, nor the Geisbach in Switzerland, can compare for a moment in grandeur and effect with the rapids of the Shannon. Nor is the river the only attractive object at Castle Connell its adjuncts are all beautiful. The greenest of lawns rise from it: the finest timber fringes it; magnificent mansions tower above their surrounding woods; swelling knolls are dotted with cattle and sheep; and it so happened, too, that the landscape had all the advantage which the alternations of sunshine and shadow could give it. I went as far as a holy well, dedicated to St Senanus. Judging from what I saw, it must be in high repute; for hundreds of little wooden vessels lay heaped in and above it, the offerings of those who had come to drink; and the trees that overshadowed the well were entirely covered with shreds of all colours-bits and clippings of gowns, and handkerchiefs, and petticoats,—remembrances, also, of those who drank. These, I believe, are the title-deeds to certain exemptions, or benefits, claimed by those who thus deposit them in the keeping of the patron saint, who is supposed to be thus reminded of the individuals whose penances might otherwise have been overlooked. noticed among the offerings, some strings of beads, and a few locks of hair. I The inn at Castle Connell is beautifully situated, and very moderate in its charges; and the inhabitants of Limerick make abundant use of it; for, besides that Castle Connell is resorted to as summer quarters, it is also a noted rendezvous of the trades-people, on Sundays and holidays. I hired a small rowing boat to take me up the river to Killaloe, where the steam navigation of the Upper Shannon commences. The rapids of Castle Connell, although they interrupt the river navigation, are not allowed to impede the water communication between the Upper Shannon and Limerick-a canal being cut from the city to a point in the Shannon, about a mile and a half above Castle Connell. Leaving Castle Connell, Clare is on one side, and Limerick county on the other side of the river; but the division line between Limerick and Tipperary is soon passed; and then Clare is on the west, and Tipperary on the east side of the river. Nothing could be greener than the sloping banks which we rowed swiftly by: they were adorned, too, on the Limerick side especially, by several pretty villas; and this being hay season, the slanting sunshine, falling athwart the after-grass, bathed it in hues that were almost too brilliant to be natural. The river is here from two to three hundred yards wide, and averages from thirty to forty feet in depth. and Before ascending to this point, Mr Inglis visited Ennis and Limerick. At Ennis, the county town of Clare, he attended the assize. He had previously attended sessions in Tralee other quarters. The number of persons that pour into an Irish town upon these occasions must strike every stranger. Their eagerness is a natural consequence. "Besides the groups that throng every part of the open streets, and who are always in ear. nest talk, dense crowds are collected at the door of every attorney's office; and no one of this brotherhood can walk a yard without having his sleeve pulled by half-a-dozen boys' or women, all interested for or against somebody; and intreating his honour to get them justice: which may mean, either to get a man hanged, or to save a man from hanging." The greater part of these cases originate in rows and scrimmages at fairs, and in what are facetiously termed fair murders. The spirit of faction in which these outrages originate, is a virtue in the court as upon the pitched battle ground. Mr Inglis saw a woman at the Ennis assize brought in support of the prosecution for a homicide committed on some cousin, who, on being desired to identify the prisoners, and the court-keeper's long rod being put into her hand that she might point them out, struck each of them a smart blow on the head. As for finding out the truth, by the mere evidence of the witnesses, it is generally impossible. Almost all worth knowing, is elicited on the cross-examination; and it is always by the appearance and manner of the witness more than by his words, that the truth is to be gathered. All the witnesses examined for the prosecution were, by their own account, mere lookers-on at the battle; nor stick nor stone had they. Their party had no mind to fight that day; but, in making this assertion, they always take care to let it be known, that, if they had had a mind to fight, they could have handled their shillelahs to some purpose. On the other hand, all the witnesses for the prisoner aver just the same of themselves; so that it is more by what witnesses wont tell, than by what they do tell, that truth is discovered. Half the witnesses called, on both sides, have broken heads; and it is not unfrequently by a comparison of the injuries received on both sides, and by the evidence of the doctor, that one is helped to the truth. To save a relation from punishment, or to punish any one who has injured a relation, an Irish peasant will swear anything This would be called, by some, hatred of the law; but, although, in swearing falsely, the Irish peasant wishes to defeat the ends of justice, he does not do so, merely because he hates justice and the law, but because he thinks he is bound to save his relation, or any one of his faction. If the name of the man who was killed be O'Grady, then every witness who comes up to be sworn for the prosecution, is also an O'Grady; or, if they be women, they were O'Gradys before they were married and if the name of the prisoner be O'Neil, then all the witnesses for the defence are O'Neils; or if there be any exceptions in name, still there is a relationship of some kind. : One of the cases tried at this assize was that of a man tried for the murder of a girl whom he had seduced. He had killed her that he might marry a richer damsel. The body he buried in a peat-rick. "One of the witnesses on being desired to identify the prisoner, and being asked the question, 'Is that the man?' turned round, and recognising the prisoner, said, 'That's him,' and added, 'How are you, Paddy?' nodding familiarly and good-humouredly to the accused. The man was convicted and hanged." Of Limerick we can only notice the admirable management of the Lunatic Asylum. We have already mentioned the extreme wretchedness of one part of the population; and this gives little heart to contemplate the elegance, wealth, and luxury of the fine, and, as it is named, prosperous city, which carries so much misery within its bosom. The Lunatic Asylum is " a pattern for all such institutions. I have never anywhere seen a better example of what may be accomplished by proper management. The building, in its exterior, might be the residence of a nobleman; its interior would put to shame the best scrubbed parlour of Rotterdam; and, in viewing its inmates, madness appears divested of half its horrors. When I visited this institution, it contained two hundred and four persons, only four of whom were that day under coercion," There is another good institution in Limerick which merits notice. It is a loan society, or charitable pawn-office, which advances money upon pledges on equitable terms, the whole profits going to the beneficent purposes connected with the establishment. It is a great protection against the extortionate system of pawn-broking, so oppressive to the necessitous, and is well worthy of adoption in other quarters. From Killaloe on the Shannon, Mr Inglis went by steam up Loch Derg. The Clare side is covered with deep woods, backed by lofty hills; and the Tipperary side is adorned by the fine domain of Castle-loch, embosomed in magnificent oak woods here, too, an island surmounted by a ruin, is seen on the right, close to the shore; and a small harbour has been constructed in a little bay, for the convenience of the export of slate. Immediately on emerging from the first reach, the loch spreads both to the left and right. The left 1each, which is not the path of the vessel, is an interesting one. Clare is on one side of it, and county Galway on the other. On the Clare side, the nearer banks are finely cultivated and well wooded; and more than one ruined castle is seen rising from the water's edge. Leaving this reach, of which I have just been speaking, to the left, we now turned into the main reach of the loch. The banks are now, for a few miles, less interesting on the Tipperary side; but on the Galway shore, several gentlemen's seats are seen, and a tolerable sprinkling of wood. We made a short halt at a place formerly called Cow Island, now christened Williamstown. Here an hotel is in course of being built. The slow rate at which the steamer carried us through the lake, afforded ample time for observation; and although the weather was not what would generally be called fine, and gave rise to much grumbling among the passengers, I was not among the number of grumblers. It was not, indeed, one of those splendid summer days when lakes are like mirrors, and woods are mirrored in them when the green slopes seem to bask in sunshine, and repose dwells among the hills. It was all sorts of weather we had gleams of sunshine; sudden mists; flying showers; moments of calm; sweeping breezes : so that, in the course of one voyage up Loch Derg, I had the advantage of seeing it under as many aspects as if I had traversed it in every season. : "Its The traveller was now at Portumna, and twenty-three miles above Killaloe, and with increasing enthusiasm he speaks of the noble river which had borne him on. He was approaching Banagher, and already an hundred and thirty miles from the sea, and nearly a hundred more from the end of this inland navigation. volume," he says, appears to be as great as when we saw it at Limerick; it is several hundred yards broad, and twenty and thirty feet deep. What a body of water is this! What are the Thames, the Medway, the Mersey, the Severn, the Trent, the Humber, the Tweed, or the Clyde, a hundred and thirty miles from the sea? I am not sure if they exist at all; or if any of them do, they are but brawling streams for the minnow to sport in." From Banagher, Mr Inglis went to Athlone. He did not find Longford an improving portion of the island. The landholders and the labourers are at feud. A wealthy and unembarrassed baronet, on being asked why he did not embellish his domain, which stood greatly in need of it, and thus give some employment to the people, said, "he made it a rule to circumscribe, within the least possible limits, his intercourse with the lower orders." It is not every landlord who might choose so to express him. self, but I fear there are too many who so act. Mr Inglis generally found the land-owners extremely ignorant of the real condition of the poor: and, how, indeed, are they to gain their knowledge, unless they specially seek it? They do not themselves hire labourers; they do not call on the small farmer for rent; they do not themselves eject or drive for rent ;—and it it not to the hall, but to the farm-house that the mendicant, and the mendicant's wife, and the orphan child, and the unemployed labourer, carry their sack and their petition. The landlord has his gate-house, beyond which the vigilant porter permits no unwelcome visiter to pass. There are not unfrequent instances of Irish farmers saving money, and leaving a hoard of sovereigns in old stockings, or giving handsome portions to their daughters. This Mr Inglis justly declares no test of their condition. tatoes. I cannot think it any brilliant example of prosperity, that a farmer should leave a bag of gold behind him, if he and his family have subsisted all their lives on dry poTo entitle one to say that a farmer can live out of his land, he must be able to pay his rent; to live comfortably to educate and provide for his family, and to do something towards improving his land. I fear, how. ever, if such were the standard by which the condition of the Irish land-occupiers were to be judged, we should be brought to the conclusion that none of the land-holders in Ireland, excepting perpetual lease-holders, can live out of their land. In a parish in Longford, of which the bishop is rector, and from which he draws four or five hundred pounds, there is no church nor Protestant service in the parish. "His Lordship, on being respectfully written to on the subject, replied, that there was service in the next parish!" Pressed as we are with more important matters relating to the native land of Goldsmith, we cannot resist lingering for one brief minute upon the birth-place of a genuine Irishman, and the most genial and kindly of the tuneful race. About three miles from Ballymahon, is the hamlet of Pallas-more, the birth-place of Goldsmith. Mr Inglis could not worship at this shrine, and pay due homage to Miss Edgeworth, whose residence is not far off, so he preferred Pallas-more, and every reader will forgive him, and the lady herself will approve the choice: I walked up a green lane, and across some fields, and found myself at the hamlet. Goldsmith's house is not now in existence; there is only to be seen some small part of the wall of a fence, which seems to have enclosed the orchard. The site of the house is a little triangular field, overgrown with weeds and long grass. A few large ash trees are scattered here and there, and close by are a few cottages, a little pond, and a very old orchard, with very old pear trees in it, from which young Oliver most likely was wont to regale himself. From this spot there is a gentle slope down to some low meadows, through which flows the river Inny. The country round is a fruitful enclosed country of corn and pasture. Such is the spot, such the scene, amidst which the infant genius of Goldsmith was nursed, and where he passed his early childhood. Such is the spot he never forgot. Pallasmore was his birth-place, but his childhood and early youth were passed at Lishoy, the Sweet Auburn of his muse. It is of this village residence that, in the blaze of his London fame, Goldsmith writes to a friend-" If I go to the opera, where Signora Colomba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lisboy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last good night,' from Peggy Golden; or, if I climb up Hampstead hill, I confess it is fine; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature." Mr Inglis went from Athlone by Balinasloe into Galway, the capital of the west, which, in his eyes, looked very Popish and very Spanish. It is the fifth town in Ireland. The population amounts to 34,000, which, with the 6000 inhabit ants of its appendage, the Claddach, the fishing town of Galway, makes a population of 42,000 souls. In that town there is not even one bookseller's shop, no publie and no circulating library! Provisions appear rather dear in this place. Wa Vages are very low. At Galway, Mr Inglis freed himself from all civilized encumbrances, and entered Cunnemara and Joyce's country as a pedestrian. This region is what may be called the wild highlands of Ireland-its Moidart, Knoidart, Kintail, and Lord Reay's country. Ouchterard, on the banks of Loch Corrib, is the frontier village. The parish of Ouchterard is thirty-three miles long, and fourteen broad. Leaving this place, our traveller says "I journeyed up the bank of the little stream which runs through Ouchterard, and skirted several small lakes into which it expands, and then found myself approaching mountain scenery. I was now in Cunnemara ; with me mountain regions and buoyant spirits are synonimous." Mr Inglis established himself for some days at the comfortable inn at Ma'am, which the landlord has been pleased to christen the "Corrib-Head Hotel," a wonderful place in point of accommodation when the locality is considered. There the tourist had the good fortune to witness a pattern in all its glory, and crowned with every requisite attribute. The pattern was held high up in the mountains in a pass of Mamturk. An Irish pattern is not unlike a Scotch Holy Fair, as described by Burns, save that, though equal quantities of refreshments may be flowing, no scrimmage marks the close of the latter! When I reached the summit of the Pass, says Mr Inglis, and came in sight of the ground, it was about four in the afternoon, and the pattern was at its height; and truly, in this wild mountain spot, the scene was most striking and picturesque. There were a scoro tents or more, some open at the sides, and some closed; hundreds in groups were seated on the grass, or on the stones which lie abundantly there. Some old persons were yet on their knees, beside the holy well, performing their devotions; and here and there, apart, and halfscreened by the masses of rocks which lay about, girls of the better order, who had finished their pastimes, wele putting off their shoes and stockings to trot homeward; or were arranging their dress; or perhaps, though more rarely, exchanging a word or two with a Joyce, or a Cunnemara boy. All was quiet when I reached the ground, and I was warmly welcomed as a stranger, by many, who invited me into their tents. Of course I accepted the invitation, and the pure potheen circulated freely. By and by, however, some boastful expression of a Joyce appeared to give offence to several at the far end o. the tent, and something loud and contemptuous was spoken by two or three in a breath. The language which, in compliment to me, had been English, suddenly changed to Irish. Twe or three glasses of potheen were quickly gulped by most of the boys, and the innkeeper who had accompanied me, and who sat by me, whispered I had seen that there would soon be some fighting. abundance of fighting on a small scale in Ireland; but, I confess, I had been barbarous enough to wish I might see a regular faction fight, and now I was likely to be gratified. Taking the hint of the innkeeper, I shook hands with the "boys" nearest to me, right and left, and taking advantage of a sudden burst of voices, I stepped over my bench, and, retiring from my tent, took up a safe position on some neighbouring rocks. I had not long to wait; out sallied the Joyces, and a score of other "boys," from several tents at once, as if there had been some preconcerted signal, and the flourishing of shillelahs did not long precede the using of them. Any one to see an Irish fight, for the first time, would conclude that a score or two must inevitably be put horsde-combat. The very flourish of a regular shillelah, and the shout that accompanies it, seem to be the immediate precursors of a fractured skull, but the affair, though bad enough, is not so fatal as it appears to be; the shillelahs, no doubt, do sometimes descend upon a head, which is forthwith a broken head, but they oftener descend upon each other, and the fight soon becomes one of personal strength. The parties close and grapple, and the most powerful man throws his adversary; fair play is but little attended to; two or three often attack a single man, nor is there a cessation of blows even when a man is on the ground. On the present occasion, five or six were disabled, but there was no homicide, and after a scrimmage, which lasted perhaps ten minutes, the Joyces remained masters of the field. The women took no part in the fight. From the hotel of Loch Corrib-Head, the next stage at which the traveller in Cunnemara was arrested by the weather, was Flynn's halfway house. I found, he says, the kitchen full, and abundance of merriment going forward. There was a piper and a fiddler, both of whom had been at the pattern; there were Joyces and Flyns-men and women-boys and girls-and here I saw by far the finest specimen of an Irish girl I had yet seen in Ireland. She was a magnificent creature, the daughter of the hostess, with a fine, expressive, and somewhat aristocratic face, and a form of perfect symmetry: her sweetheart was there-a Joyce, only seventeen years of age, but six feet three inches in height, and weighing upwards of sixteen stone: the girl was eighteen; but the match was not perfectly approved of, he being a Joyce, and she a Flynn; the Joyces and the Flynns being not entirely at one. Dancing was the great amusement of the evening; and excellent dancers some of the party were. I was not a novice in the mysteries of the jig, and did not decline the invitation of the hostess and her beautiful daughter. The more vigorously I danced, the greater was my popularity; and at the conclusion of every turn, "Long life to your honour !" was the universal exclamation. Nor was it possible to decline a little potheen; though this I took in greater moderation than the dancing. I don't know where all the household and visiters got beds: I saw no bed-room, excepting the one I occupied; and I would very willingly that it had been occupied by anybody but myself. To have looked for a clean bed here, would have been ridiculous. The condition of the people here is better than in the flat central thickly-peopled districts. We hear of a farmer who has a hundred head of black cattle, many horses and cows, and a lease of ninety-nine years, at a rent of £15 a. year. Of the smaller farmers, all had two or more cows, turf for the cutting, and the privilege of fishing at certain seasons. Every one had his barley field for growing the constituent of his own home-distilled potheen, and no secret was made about it. The King's writ bal never yet gone over Cunnemara; and THE Martin is the best Martin that had ever reigned over the |