The
land is very empty of inhabitants.
CHAPTER XLIX
AN EMPTY COUNTRY - RAPACIOUS LANDLORDS.
From Roscommon I drove to Lanesborough where Longford and Roscommon
meet at a bridge across the Shannon, and where a large Catholic church
stands on each side of the river. The bridge at Lanesborough, a swing
bridge, substantial and elegant, the solid stone piers - all the stone
work on bridge and wharves is of hewn stone - speak of preparations for a
great traffic which is not there, like the warehouses of Westport.
Seeing all facilities for trade and all conveniences for trade prepared,
and the utter silence over all, makes one think of enchanted places
where there must come a touch of some kind to break the charm before the
bustle of life awakes and "leaps forward like a cataract."
One man stood idle and solitary on the wharf at Lanesborough as if he
were waiting for the sudden termination of this spell-bound still life.
My glimpse of Longford from the neighborhood of Lanesborough showed a
place of wooded hills and valleys covered with crops, and with this
glimpse we turned back over the plain of Roscommon. The road lay through
peat bog for a good part of the way, and the mud-wall cabins were a sad
sight indeed.
Empty as the country is, eviction is still going on.
