middle of the high road for winnowing his
crop of oats. There was plenty of high and
dry ground at hand; but he preferred the
middle of the road: so he had to bundle up
his cloth, and shove away his oats, spilling
the grain at every move, and turning in
despair from us to a cartful of people who
came up at the moment on the other side.
To complete his embarrassment, the horse in
the cart was blind, and could not be made
aware of the concessions required of him.
After a loss of much time and oats, we were
all at our proper business again—the farmer
actually dragging back his apparatus to the
middle of the road, as soon as it was clear.

Besides the cabins and cottages, we saw,
near this road , one solitary, dreary-looking
white house. It was tall and rather large,
with no garden or field belonging to it. Its
windows looked as if they had never been
opened; its wood-work as if it had not been
painted for a century; and its whitewash was
grey with weather-stains. It was the Cholera
Hospital. Not a token of a dwelling was
near, but the remains of a mud hut, melted
down by the rains. The sight of the place is
enough to give the cholera to a nervous
person. Before the famine there were three
thousand inhabitants on the island. Now,
though the intervening years have settled
many new residents there, there are only
two thousand five hundred. I wonder how
many died in that house, whether scores or
hundreds! As the country people say, "The
cholera found them weak from the hunger,"
and carried them off with wonderful rapidity.
Of the three thousand residents of Valencia,
at the time of the famine, two thousand two
hundred received relief in food, as their only
chance for life. But no more of this now.
I am speaking of a scene of health, and
industry, and plenty, for all who choose to
seek it.

All the way from the port, our eyes have
been fixed on a tower, high up and afar, with
a vast green upland between us and it. We
want to reach that tower, for the sake of a
gaze over the Atlantic. Arriving at a hamlet
of cabins, set down one right before another,
with a manure heap and puddle between
each, we are told that we must walk the rest of
the way; and very tempting looks the long
green ascent, with a broad green road just
distinguishable in the midst. My comrade
asks an old woman how far it is to the tower.
No answer. She understands nothing but
Irish. We try a funny-looking boy; but to
every sort of question he answers only—"I
know;" and this is evidently the only English
he can speak. There is a girl, pelting the
cows with peat, to send them out of our way:
she speaks English. My comrade asks, "Is
there anybody up at the tower?"  "Yes,
Miss."  " Who is there?"  "Only the cows,
Miss."  We go to see. There is, indeed, a green
road, and it must once have been a fine one,
judging by the strength of the little bridges
over the water-courses, which look as good
as ever. Up we go, up and up, amidst the
wondering cattle, some of which lie in our
path till the last moment, while others flee,
and others again stick out their four legs,
and stand fast, as if they thought we wanted
to knock them down. One calm-looking
munching cow looks benignly at us, as if
wishing us a pleasant walk; another, a nervous
heifer, seems to prick up her horns as a horse
pricks up his ears, and looks disposed to run
at us in sheer fright. She scampers off when
we look at her, and turns, and approaches
as we proceed; and then scampers off again.
We find none at the tower. It is too high.
For some time we have seen nothing alive but
a black caterpillar in the grass, and a wagtail
see-sawing its body on a warm stone. Up at
the tower, on the topmost stone of its ruined
walls, sits a jackdaw, immensely solemn and
important, believing himself no doubt the
lord of the scene. But we cannot attend to
him now. We can see daws elsewhere; but
nowhere else is there anything like this scene.

We sit down on the stones which were
once the wall, and look down—not, if the
truth were told, without some of the aching
of the bones which is the miserable pain of
those who peep down a precipice, or dream
that they are thrown down one. At the same
instant, by an odd coincidence, we ask each
other whether there is anything whiter than
snow, because the foam, rushing and weltering
about that rock in the sunshine below, looks
to our eyes whiter than any snow we ever
saw. We will tell no more of this view from
Bray Head, in Valencia. There is no
describing the Skellig Rocks, or the black nearer
crags, or the dreamy beauty of the inland
view of receding mountains, with glittering
sounds and bays running in among them. Far
out at sea, there are smoke-like showers; but,
turning the other way, or looking below, the
water is, where not a true Mediterranean
blue, a deep green or bright lilac. This
ruined tower was erected when invasion was
expected; and the green track was the
military road, up which went the soldiers and
the cannon. There were once two forts
below—north and south of Bray Head. They
were built by Cromwell. If anything remains
of them, they are, with this tower, the
property of this melancholy daw, which now is
on the move to show us the way down. We
must go; for we have not yet seen what we
came out for.

We return by the upper road; and my
comrade points out that, while there is a well-
marked foot-track on the hard road, there is
no trace of wheels. It seems as it our car
were the first wheeled carriage that had ever
been here.

We observe a stranger thing than this.
While the dwellings are so wretchedly
thatched as to look like the huts of savages,
the fences are patched with slates—the roads
are mended with slates—the broken windows