it is—what it was not before—an invention, and
he who has made it so is—in the opinion of one
who knows what practical difficulties are—rightly
endowed with the credit of the discovery.

DRIVER MIKE.

How can I find words to describe the
barrenness of Connemara, except by comparing it
to that of county Mayo; and how can I describe
county Mayo except by comparing it to
Connemara?

Here have I been riding on one of Bianconi's
cars ten miles, from Clifden to Galway, and have
not seen a soul yet, and scarcely a body, except
the two half-naked children that were playing
round a peat-heap at Ballyrag, and the old woman
with the grey hair tied in a knot who put-to
the horses at Croppy town. Not a house
either but that one hut, beyond the old castle
of the Martins in the lake, which was
announced to us by two or three spindly trees full
an hour beforehand.

Bog, bog, bog, mountain, lake, like the enchanted,
doomed country in a fairy story.

Two inns to-day—the first kept by a Church
of England clergyman, the second by the parish
doctor—do not indicate much traffic or commerce
in this beautiful region of blue mist and
brown, burnt-sienna-ish bog. It remains, I should
think, much as it did when St. Patrick, in his
white robe, tramped barefooted to seek audience
of the savage Irish king, who was dressed in wolfskins,
and had a spiky mace for a walking-stick;
much the same as when the black Danes carried
their raven banner through it; quite the same
as in the croppy times, or when cocked-hats and
swords were seen in Galway streets.

A heron stands on one leg, in a meditative
way, like a one-legged pensioner, waiting till the
coach-wheel nearly touches him, as if he were
stopping there to hand the coachman a parcel.
Rushes, with their little green tubes, burnt
red-brown tops, and little bushes of flowers, are
pretty enough; but ten miles of rushes is too
much of a good thing. If we do see any children,
ragged and picturesque, in the scarlet frocks
worn by the Connemara peasantry, they run from
us frightened, like a parliament of rats disturbed
by the appearance of a terrier.

There are two other depressing things
about Connemara. One is, that the road
is so wild, and mournfully desolate, and
unpeopled, that wild creatures have claimed
it, and claim joint possession, particularly
the wild ducks and the magpies. They form
a feature in all the wild parts of Ireland.
Looking far ahead down the dry, blue, hard
road, you see suddenly a flock of black spots in
the centre of it, perhaps a hundred yards off.
As you get nearer you find this is a batch of
little, callow, half-fledged wild-ducks, brought
here by the fussy mother to dust and sun themselves
from some adjacent bog-hole or clump of
friendly rushes. The young ones have never
heard of coaches, and would not rise at all but
for the pecks and bustle of their mother, who
fluffs them up and scrambles them off just in
time to be saved from our swift revolving wheels.
Off they waddle, only disturbed for a moment;
and, as you look back, you see them again just
where they were before.

Then the magpies—those black and white
clerical-looking birds you see in England, perhaps
once in a long summer day's walk—here you
put them up in couples, ten in a mile, with their
long tails and their shy, mischievous manner,
jerking about in the road-side trees (when there
are any), or balancing awkwardly on the clumsy
stone walls.

Then, as for weasels running across the road,
and carrion crows looking out for lamb, they are
seen constantly, and, in Connemara, eagles too,
as you will hear. Before I get to my account
of this energetic Italian Bianconi, who single
handed has permeated all Ireland with cars, and
done more good to poor Ireland in twenty years
than——But I am getting treasonable. In the
midst of these observations, my Bianconi driver,
Mike Joyce, breaks out with a song, written by
the schoolmaster at Derry Knouring, and, as it
is not devoid of quaintness, I give it:

               Tune of the Nate Gould Ring.

             "O gra machree,
              You don't love me,
              Or else you wouldn't linger,
              This little ring,
              Which now I bring,
              To slip upon your finger.

             "Colleen asthore,
              My heart is sore,
              Two long I have been waiting.
              I've feed the priest,
              And cooked the feast,
              It is no lies I'm stating;
              It's truth, bedad, I'm stating.

             "Mavourneen, then,
              Be one in ten,
              And do not look so tazing,
              The pig is bought,
              The fish are caught,
              The day and hour are flaying;
              O Kitty ain't they flaying.

             "You smile at me,
              O gra machree,
              Love, dear, you will not linger.
              'No blarney, Tom!'
              I'm deaf and domb,
              The ring is on her finger;
              Whoop, boys, it's on her finger."

I had complimented him on his song, when
who should get up at a road-side whisky-shop
where we changed horses, but two bagmen?
who, having hoisted up their tin boxes and
mackintosh-covered bundles of patterns till the
car groaned again, began at once, before the car
moved off, playing at gambling games of cards,
with an ardour worthy of a better cause. We
were still in sight of Benatola, king of the
twelve Pins (or skittle mountains), and they were
on the seat with their backs to me and Mike,
who drove sideways, as carmen love to do.

Mike cast a, malign glance at the bagmen, as
they imperiously stowed away their tin boxes.