The Letters Of
The Letters Of "Norah" On Her Tour Through Ireland By Margaret Dixon Mcdougall - Page 182 of 208 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

That Heroine's Modern Representative Expects Everyone To Take A Dose Of Goat's Milk In Poteen From Her, And Leave Some Gratuity In Return.

The whole population turned out to beg under some pretext or another.

One very handsome girl, bareheaded and barefooted, and got up light and airy as to costume, begged unblushingly without any excuse. She gathered up her light drapery with one hand, and kept up with the horse, skelping along through mud and mire as if she liked it. I noticed that she was set on by her parents who were the occupiers of a little farm.

Suddenly our car stopped at a house where all sorts of lake curiosities were exposed for sale. From this point it was four miles, Irish miles, through the gap to the lake to the point where we took the boat. This was one circumstance of which we were not aware when we started; it was therefore a surprize. I am sorry to say that this gap was a disappointment to me. It was a difficult path among bare mountains, but nothing startling or uncommon.

What was uncommon was the relays of indefatigable women that lay in wait for us at every turn. Goats' milk and poteen, photographs, knitted socks, carved knick-nacks in bog oak; everything is offered for sale; denial will not be taken. You pass one detachment to come upon another lurking in ambush at a corner. There are men with small cannons who will wake the echoes for a consideration; there are men with key bugles who will wake the echoes more musically for a consideration; there is the blind fiddler of the gap who fiddles away in hopes of intercepting some stray pennies from the shower. One impudent woman followed us for quite a way to sell us her photograph, as the photograph of Eily O'Connor, murdered here by her lover many years ago - murdered not at the gap but in the lake. There was a large party of us and these followers, horse, foot and artillery, I may say were a persistent nuisance all the way. The ponies, crowds of them, followed us to the entrance of the Gap, where they disappeared, but the women and girls never faltered for the five miles. The reiterated and re-reiterated offer of goat's milk and poteen became exasperating; the bodyguard of these pertinacious women that could not be shaken off was most annoying. The tourists are to the inhabitants of Killarney what a wreck used to be to the coast people of Cornwall, a God-send.

One does feel inclined to lose all patience as they run the gauntlet here, and then one looks around at the miserable cabins built of loose stones, at the thatch held on by ropes weighted with stones, the same as are to be seen in Achil Island, among the Donegal hills, or the long glens of Leitrim, notices the patches of pale, sickly, stunted oats, the little corners of pinched potatoes - a girl passed us with a tin dish of potatoes for the dinner, they were little bigger than marbles - the little rickles of turf that the constant rain is spoiling, and one sees that as there is really no industry in the place, of loom or factory, that want and encouragement have combined to make them come down like the wolf on the fold to the attack of tourists.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 182 of 208
Words from 93456 to 94024 of 107283


Previous 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online