The drought is also causing a scarcity of water. There are a few
springs on this side of the island, but they come only from a little
distance, and in hot weather are not to be relied on. The supply for
this house is carried up in a water-barrel by one of the women. If
it is drawn off at once it is not very nauseous, but if it has lain,
as it often does, for some hours in the barrel, the smell, colour,
and taste are unendurable. The water for washing is also coming
short, and as I walk round the edges of the sea, I often come on a
girl with her petticoats tucked up round her, standing in a pool
left by the tide and washing her flannels among the sea-anemones and
crabs. Their red bodices and white tapering legs make them as
beautiful as tropical sea-birds, as they stand in a frame of
seaweeds against the brink of the Atlantic. Michael, however, is a
little uneasy when they are in sight, and I cannot pause to watch
them. This habit of using the sea water for washing causes a good
deal of rheumatism on the island, for the salt lies in the clothes
and keeps them continually moist.
The people have taken advantage of this dry moment to begin the
burning of the kelp, and all the islands are lying in a volume of
grey smoke. There will not be a very large quantity this year, as
the people are discouraged by the uncertainty of the market, and do
not care to undertake the task of manufacture without a certainty of
profit.
The work needed to form a ton of kelp is considerable. The seaweed
is collected from the rocks after the storms of autumn and winter,
dried on fine days, and then made up into a rick, where it is left
till the beginning of June.
It is then burnt in low kilns on the shore, an affair that takes
from twelve to twenty-four hours of continuous hard work, though I
understand the people here do not manage well and spoil a portion of
what they produce by burning it more than is required.
The kiln holds about two tons of molten kelp, and when full it is
loosely covered with stones, and left to cool. In a few days the
substance is as hard as the limestone, and has to be broken with
crowbars before it can be placed in curaghs for transport to
Kilronan, where it is tested to determine the amount of iodine
contained, and paid for accordingly. In former years good kelp would
bring seven pounds a ton, now four pounds are not always reached.
In Aran even manufacture is of interest. The low flame-edged kiln,
sending out dense clouds of creamy smoke, with a band of red and
grey clothed workers moving in the haze, and usually some
petticoated boys and women who come down with drink, forms a scene
with as much variety and colour as any picture from the East.
The men feel in a certain sense the distinction of their island, and
show me their work with pride. One of them said to me yesterday,
'I'm thinking you never saw the like of this work before this day?'
'That is true,' I answered, 'I never did.'
'Bedad, then,' he said, 'isn't it a great wonder that you've seen
France and Germany, and the Holy Father, and never seen a man making
kelp till you come to Inishmaan.'
All the horses from this island are put out on grass among the hills
of Connemara from June to the end of September, as there is no
grazing here during the summer.
Their shipping and transport is even more difficult than that of the
homed cattle. Most of them are wild Connemara ponies, and their
great strength and timidity make them hard to handle on the narrow
pier, while in the hooker itself it is not easy to get them safely
on their feet in the small space that is available. They are dealt
with in the same way as for the bullocks I have spoken of already,
but the excitement becomes much more intense, and the storm of
Gaelic that rises the moment a horse is shoved from the pier, till
it is safely in its place, is indescribable. Twenty boys and men
howl and scream with agitation, cursing and exhorting, without
knowing, most of the time, what they are saying.
Apart, however, from this primitive babble, the dexterity and power
of the men are displayed to more advantage than in anything I have
seen hitherto. I noticed particularly the owner of a hooker from the
north island that was loaded this morning. He seemed able to hold up
a horse by his single weight when it was swinging from the masthead,
and preserved a humorous calm even in moments of the wildest
excitement. Sometimes a large mare would come down sideways on the
backs of the other horses, and kick there till the hold seemed to be
filled with a mass of struggling centaurs, for the men themselves
often leap down to try and save the foals from injury. The backs of
the horses put in first are often a good deal cut by the shoes of
the others that arrive on top of them, but otherwise they do not
seem to be much the worse, and as they are not on their way to a
fair, it is not of much consequence in what condition they come to
land.
