pier, paid off my car, and found that the
"packet" did not sail till the morning, "perhaps
not then," and that a gentleman had
two hours before paid fifteen shillings to be
taken across in a fishing-smack. Here was a
turf-boat getting ready to start for Connemara
with the turn of the tide. "With a wind
like this, she'll do it in four hours or less,
sir," said the coast-guard man, a jolly Cork
"boy;" and of all Irish people that I know
the Cork men are the joiliest, as the Cork
women are the fairest. Had I been "without
encumbrance," I should have got some
provisions and ventured; but I was the slave of
letters, nay, of telegrams; so I bargained
with three men to take me across for six
shillings in a corrach, the canoe commonly
used on this coast—a light wooden framework,
covered with tarred sail-cloth, keelless
in order that it may be dragged over sloping
rocks.

Off we set, and three sturdier rowers I never
saw. It was very smooth; and, when once I got
reconciled to the idea that at any moment a cut
from my knife would let in the waves, which,
as they dashed against the stern, made the
canvas perceptibly give way, I enjoyed the swift
easy rush of the light boat over the surface.
The men, who could scarcely speak any
English, said they often went to the Isles of Arran
in winter. "On a smooth day?" I opined.
"No, but on a rough," they replied. "The
boat is like a duck; she do be jumping along
over the top of the waves." I was glad she
did not have to try that mode of proceeding
during my transit, though I found that my
boys, whom I left at Kilkee, had been out
in a pretty rough sea, and had admired with
a little trembling the duck-like motions of
their corrach. We were to make the
distance in two hours and a half. Alas for human
plans! The night grew very dark, and it
soon became evident that my crew did not
understand the Galway lights. We ran aground
—we drawing, perhaps, four inches of water.
Two of the men got out, and tried to find the
channel.

They then said there was no channel, and they
must lie by till the tide came in. Now, I knew
Galway Bay was shallow. I knew it to my
cost, for I had had something to do with Lever's
ocean steamers; but I did not believe that even
at the lowest tide it was as shallow all over as
that. So at last I got them to drop down and
ask the way of a trawler moored near the lighthouse.
Then ensued a loud parley in Irish, the
result, of which was that we got our course, and
reached the dock-steps about an hour and a half
after our time. Very angry with things and
people in general, I sped off to the mail-car
office, where the exceeding courtesy of the
lady-clerk soon put me in good humour. Far from
being vexed at having to talk to a stranger
tourist just about midnight, she counselled
me as to my route, and even marked down for
me the distances, and showed me how, by a
little management, I might see all the best
of the country, and be back in Galway next
night.

In high spirits I went off to Black's Hotel
Here there was such a crowd on the stairs and
at the door that I thought a Fenian general had
been just captured inside. However, as I was
walking side by side with a waiter, and
endeavouring to extract something practical out of
his assurance that I might have "anything"
for supper, I found myself nearly enveloped in
a haze of tulle, the wearers of which were hastening
up to the ball-room. It was the assize ball,
so I thought my chop would be far too commonplace
to be attended to, and turned into Webb's,
next door, where (to the credit of Galway) I
got the best chop, with three kidneys attached,
that I had eaten for a long time. This
despatched, I had an argument on mixed education
with two fellows who were waiting my
departure to enjoy their shake-downs in the
coffee-room (they took the opposite view to
mine, so I had a pleasure in keeping them out
of bed), and, a little before two, I started from
the post-office on the two-horse mail car. I
hope Galway is not always so late in its habits.
I fear it is, though; for if assize-balls only come
now and then, the Dublin mail goes out every
midnight, and this must be a dissipating thing
for a city which depends so much on those who
come and go by train.

My only fear on the mail car was that I might
roll off: I have a habit of falling asleep outside
stage-coaches. So I strapped myself on, and
slept what I think is called a dog's sleep almost
as far as Oughterard, waking every now and
then to see more trees than I had seen all the
time I had been in Clare, and to catch a sidelong
glimpse at Lough Corrib. At Oughterard
it was broad daylight, so I could see the three
churches, Roman, Anglican, Wesleyan, whose
respective flocks used to have such unseemly
squabbles, and the neat houses of the parsons,
and the schools, and the orphanage; I had time,
too, to wonder how the Oughterard folks live,
what is the place's raison d'être, before the fresh
horses were put to. Then we drove on through
country growing lovelier every half mile. "The
pathless wilds of Connemara?" said I. Why
this is fertility itself compared with the
Lisdoonvarna bogs and the rocks of Burren. The
whole valley, from Oughterard to Ballynahinch,
seemed warm and cheerful. It had had nearly
three months' dry weather, as a despairing
Englishman who had been trying to fish the
lakes told me. But I don't think that, even in
wet weather, this part of Connemara can be
cheerless. The grand evil is the want of
human habitations. Eviction has gone through
the land like a pestilence. The people have
disappeared before it. The few who remain
work with heavy hearts at vastly increased
rents. Some good to the country may come of
this by-and-by, but at present the only good
is to the few—very few—out of the thousands
who are gone, who are "doing well" in
the New World. It is not pleasant, where
there is surely little tillage enough, to see the