In About Nine Hours - We Were Promised By A Lying Advertisement It Should
Be Six - We Had Crossed The Channel,
Over smooth water, and were making our
way, between green shores almost without a tree, up the bay, at the
Bottom
of which stands, or rather lies, for its site is low, the town of Belfast.
We had yet enough of daylight left to explore a part at least of the city.
"It looks like Albany," said my companion, and really the place bears some
resemblance to the streets of Albany which are situated near the river,
nor is it without an appearance of commercial activity. The people of
Belfast, you know, are of Scotch origin, with some infusion of the
original race of Ireland. I heard English spoken with a Scotch accent, but
I was obliged to own that the severity of the Scottish physiognomy had
been softened by the migration and the mingling of breeds. I presented one
of my letters of introduction, and met with so cordial a reception, that I
could not but regret the necessity of leaving Belfast the next morning.
At an early hour the next day we were in our seats on the outside of the
mail-coach. We passed through a well-cultivated country, interspersed with
towns which had an appearance of activity and thrift. The dwellings of the
cottagers looked more comfortable than those of the same class in
Scotland, and we were struck with the good looks of the people, men and
women, whom we passed in great numbers going to their work. At length,
having traversed the county of Down, we entered Lowth, when an immediate
change was visible. We were among wretched and dirty hovels,
squalid-looking men and women, and ragged children - the stature of the
people seemed dwarfed by the poverty in which they have so long lived, and
the jet-black hair and broad faces which I saw around me, instead of the
light hair and oval countenances so general a few miles back, showed me
that I was among the pure Celtic race.
Shortly after entering the county of Lowth, and close on the confines of
Armagh, perhaps partly within it, we traversed, near the village of
Jonesborough, a valley full of the habitations of peat-diggers. Its aspect
was most remarkable, the barren hills that inclose it were dark with heath
and gorse and with ledges of brown rock, and their lower declivities, as
well as the level of the valley, black with peat, which had been cut from
the ground and laid in rows. The men were at work with spades cutting it
from the soil, and the women were pressing the water from the portions
thus separated, and exposing it to the air to dry. Their dwellings were of
the most wretched kind, low windowless hovels, no higher than the heaps of
peat, with swarms of dirty children around them. It is the property of
peat earth to absorb a large quantity of water, and to part with it
slowly. The springs, therefore, in a region abounding with peat make no
brooks; the water passes into the spongy soil and remains there, forming
morasses even on the slopes of the hills.
As we passed out of this black valley we entered a kind of glen, and the
guard, a man in a laced hat and scarlet coat, pointed to the left, and
said, "There is a pretty place." It was a beautiful park along a
hill-side, groves and lawns, a broad domain, jealously inclosed by a thick
and high wall, beyond which we had, through the trees, a glimpse of a
stately mansion. Our guard was a genuine Irishman, strongly resembling the
late actor Power in physiognomy, with the very brogue which Power
sometimes gave to his personages. He was a man of pithy speech,
communicative, and acquainted apparently with every body, of every class,
whom we passed on the road. Besides him we had for fellow-passengers three
very intelligent Irishmen, on their way to Dublin. One of them was a tall,
handsome gentleman, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and a rich South-Irish
brogue. He was fond of his joke, but next to him sat a graver personage,
in spectacles, equally tall, with fair hair and light-blue eyes, speaking
with a decided Scotch accent. By my side was a square-built, fresh-colored
personage, who had travelled in America, and whose accent was almost
English. I thought I could not be mistaken in supposing them to be samples
of the three different races by which Ireland is peopled.
We now entered a fertile district, meadows heavy with grass, in which the
haymakers were at work, and fields of wheat and barley as fine as I had
ever seen, but the habitations of the peasantry had the same wretched
look, and their inmates the same appearance of poverty. Wherever the
coach stopped we were beset with swarms of beggars, the wittiest beggars
in the world, and the raggedest, except those of Italy. One or two green
mounds stood close to the road, and we saw others at a distance. "They are
Danish forts," said the guard. "Every thing we do not know the history of,
we put upon the Danes," added the South of Ireland man. These grassy
mounds, which are from ten to twenty feet in height, are now supposed to
have been the burial places of the ancient Celts. The peasantry can with
difficulty be persuaded to open any of them, on account of a prevalent
superstition that it will bring bad luck. A little before we arrived at
Drogheda, I saw a tower to the right, apparently a hundred feet in height,
with a doorway at a great distance from the ground, and a summit somewhat
dilapidated. "That is one of the round towers of Ireland, concerning which
there is so much discussion," said my English-looking fellow-traveller.
These round towers, as the Dublin antiquarians tell me, were probably
built by the early Christian missionaries from Italy, about the seventh
century, and were used as places of retreat and defense against the
pagans.
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