The Road From Omagh To Enniskillen Showed Some, I
Would Say A Good Deal, Of Waste, Unproductive Land.
Land tufted with
rushes, and bare and barren looking - still the fields tilled were
scrupulously tilled.
The houses were the worst I had yet seen on the
line of rail, as bad as in the mountains of Donegal, worse than any I
saw in Innishowen. I wonder why the fields are so trim and the homes in
many cases so horrible. Not many, I may say not any, fine houses on this
stretch of country.
Arrived at Enniskillen on market day, towards the close of April. The
number of asses on the market is something marvellous. Asses in small
carts driven by old women in mutch caps, asses with panniers, the
harness entirely made of straw, asses with burdens on their backs laid
over a sort of pillion of straw. I thought asses flourished at Cairo and
Dover, but certainly Enniskillen has its own share of them. The faces of
the people are changed, the tongues are changed. The people do not seem
of the same race as they that peopled the mountains of Donegal.
A little while after my arrival, taking a walk, I wandered into an old
graveyard round an old church which opened off the main street.
Underneath this church is the vault or place of burial of the Cole
family, lords of Enniskillen - a dreary place, closed in by a gloomy
iron gate. A very ancient man was digging a grave in this old graveyard,
sacred, I could see by the inscriptions, to the memory of many of the
stout-hearted men planted in Enniskillen, who held the land they had
settled on against all odds in a brave, stout-hearted manner.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 127 of 404
Words from 33342 to 33635
of 107283
