crowd that proceeded in masses towards the lake--or Purgatory--which
lies amongst the hills that extend to the north-east of Petigo. While
ascending the bleak, hideous mountain range, whose ridge commands a full
view of this celebrated scene of superstition, the manner and appearance
of the pilgrims were deeply interesting. Such groupings as pressed
forward around me would have made line studies either for him who wished
to deplore or to ridicule the degradations and absurdities of human
nature; indeed there was an intense interest in the scene. I look
back at this moment with awe towards the tremulous and high-strained
vibrations of my mind, as it responded to the excitement. Reader, have
you ever approached the Eternal City? have you ever, from the dreary
solitudes of the Campagna, seen the dome of St. Peter's for the first
time? and have the monuments of the greatest men and the mightiest deeds
that ever the earth witnessed--have the names of the Caesars, and the
Catos, and the Scipios, excited a curiosity amounting to a sensation
almost too intense to be borne? I think I can venture to measure the
expansion of your mind, as it enlarged itself before the crowding
visions of the past, as the dim grandeur of ages rose up and developed
itself from amidst the shadows of time; and entranced amidst the magic
of your own associations, you desired to stop--you were almost content
to go no farther--your own Rome, you were in the midst of--Rome
free--Rome triumphant--Rome classical. And perhaps it is well you
awoke in good time from your shadowy dream, to escape from the unvaried
desolation and the wasting malaria that brooded all around. Reader, I
can fancy that such might have been your sensations when the domes
and the spires of the world's capital first met your vision; and I can
assure you, that while ascending the ridge that was to give me a view of
Patrick's Purgatory, my sensations were as impressively, as powerfully
excited. For I desire you to recollect, that the welfare of your
immortal soul was not connected with your imaginings, your magnificent
visions did not penetrate into the soul's doom. You were not submitted
to the agency, of a transcendental power. You were, in a word, a poet,
but not a fanatic. What comparison, then, could there be between the
exercise of your free, manly, cultivated understanding, and my feelings
on this occasion, with my thick-coming visions of immortality, that
almost lifted me from the mountain-path I was ascending, and brought me,
as it were, into contact with the invisible world? I repeat it, then,
that such were my feelings, when all the faculties which exist in the
mind were aroused and concentrated upon one object. In such a case,
the pilgrim stands, as it were, between life and death; and as it was
superstition that placed him there, she certainly conjures up to his
heated fancy those dark, fleeting, and indistinct images which are
adjusted to that gloom which she has already cast over his mind.
Although there could not be less than two hundred people, young and old,
boys and girls, men and women, the hale and the sickly, the blind and
the lame, all climbing to gain the top with as little delay as possible,
yet was there scarcely a sound, certainly not a word, to be heard among
them. For my part, I plainly heard the palpitations of my heart, both
loud and quick. Had I been told that the veil of eternity was about
to be raised before me at that moment, I could scarcely have felt more
intensely. Several females were obliged to rest for some time, in order
to gain both physical and moral strength--one fainted; and several old
men were obliged to sit down. All were praying, every crucifix was out,
every bead in requisition; and nothing broke a silence so solemn but a
low, monotonous murmur of deep devotion.
As soon as we ascended the hill, the whole scene was instantly before
us: a large lake, surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains, bleak,
uncomfortable, and desolate. In the lake itself, about half a mile from
the edge next us, was to be seen the “Island,” with two or three slated
houses on it, naked and un-plastered, as desolate-looking almost as the
mountains. A little range of exceeding low hovels, which a dwarf could
scarcely enter without stooping, appeared to the left; and the eye could
rest on nothing more, except a living mass of human beings crawling
slowly about. The first thing the pilgrim does when he gets a sight of
the lake, is to prostrate himself, kiss the earth, and then on his
knees offer up three Paters and Aves, and a Creed for the favor of being
permitted to see this blessed place. When this is over, he descends to
the lake, and after paying tenpence to the ferry-man, is rowed over to
the Purgatory.
When the whole view was presented to me, I stood for some time to
contemplate it; I cannot better illustrate the reaction which, took
place in my mind, than by saying that it resembles that awkward
inversion which a man's proper body experiences when, on going to pull
something from which he expects a marvellous assistance, it comes with
him at a touch, and the natural consequence is, that he finds his head
down and his heels up. That which dashed the whole scene from the
dark elevation in which the romance of devotion had placed it was the
appearance of slated houses, and of the smoke that curled from the
hovels and the prior's residence. This at once brought me back to
humanity: and the idea of roasting meat, boiling pots, and dressing
dinners, dispossessed every fine and fearful image which had floated
through my imagination for the last twelve hours. In fact, allowing for
the difference of situation, it nearly resembled John's Well, or James's
Fair, when beheld at a distance, turning the slated houses into inns,
and the hovels into tents. A certain idea, slight, untraceable, and
involuntary, went over my brain on that occasion, which, though it did
not then cost me a single effort of reflection, I think was revived
and developed at a future period of my life, and became, perhaps to a
certain extent, the means of opening a wider range of thought to my
mind, and of giving a new tone to my existence. Still, however,
nothing except my idea of its external appearance disappointed, me; I
accordingly ascended with the rest, and in a short time found myself
among the living mass upon the island.
The first thing I did was to hand over my three cakes of oaten bread
which I had got made in Petigo, tied up in a handkerchief, as well as
my hat and second shirt, to the care of the owner of one of the, huts:
having first, by the way, undergone a second prostration on touching the
island, and greeted it with fifteen holy kisses, and another string
of prayers. I then, according to the regulations, should commence the
stations, lacerated as my feet were after so long a journey; so that I
had not a moment to rest. Think, therefore, what I must have suffered,
on surrounding a large chapel, in the direction of from east to west,
over a pavement of stone spikes, every one of them making its way along
my nerves and muscles to my unfortunate brain. I was absolutely stupid
and dizzy with the pain, the praying, the jostling, the elbowing, the
scrambling and the uncomfortable penitential murmurs of the whole crowd.
I knew not what I was about, but went through the forms in the same
mechanical spirit which pervaded all present. As for that solemn,
humble, and heartfelt sense of God's presence, which Christian prayer
demands, its existence in the mind would not only be a moral but
a physical impossibility in Lough Derg. I verily think that if
mortification of the body, without conversion of the life or heart--if
penance and not repentance could save the soul, no wretch who performed
a pilgrimage here could with a good grace be damned. Out of hell the
place is matchless, and if there be a purgatory in the other world, it
may very well be said there is a fair rehearsal of it in the county of
Donegal in Ireland.
When I commenced my station, I started from what is called the “Beds,”
and God help St. Patrick if he lay upon them: they are sharp stones
placed circularly in the earth, with the spike ends of them up, one
circle within another; and the manner in which the pilgrim gets as far
as the innermost, resembles precisely that in which school-boys enter
the “Walls of Troy” upon their slates. I moved away from these upon
the sharp stones with which the whole island is surfaced, keeping the
chapel, or “Prison,” as it is called, upon my right; then turning, I
came round again with a circumbendibus, to the spot from which I
set out. During this circuit, as well as I can remember, I repeated
fifty-five paters and aves, and five creeds, or five decades; and be it
known, that the fifty prayers were offered up to the Virgin Mary, and
the odd five to God! I then commenced getting round the eternal beds,
during which I repeated, I think, fifteen paters and aves more; and as
the bods decreased in circumference, the prayers decreased in length,
until a short circuit and three paters and aves finished the last and
innermost of these blessed couches. I really forgot how many times each
day the prison and these beds are to be surrounded, and how many hundred
prayers are to be repeated during the circuit, though each circuit is in
fact making the grand tour of the island; but I never shall forget that
I was the best part of a July day at it, when the soles of my feet were
flayed, and the stones hot enough to broil a beefsteak! When the first
day's station was over, it is necessary to say that a little rest would
have been agreeable? But no, this would not suit the policy of the
place; here it may be truly said that there is no rest for the wicked.
The only luxury allowed me was the privilege of feasting upon one of my
cakes (having not tasted food that blessed day until then); upon one of
my cakes, I say, and a copious supply of the water of the lake, which,
to render the repast more agreeable, was made lukewarm! This was to keep
my spirits up after the delicate day's labor I had gone through, and to
cheer me against the pleasant prospect of a hard night's praying without
sleep, which lay in the back ground! But when I saw everyone at this
refreshing meal with a good, thick, substantial bannock, and then looked
at the immateriality of my own, I could not help reverting to the woman
who made them for me, with a degree of vivacity not altogether in unison
with the charity of a Christian. The knavish creature defrauded me of
one-half of the oatmeal, although I had purchased it myself in Petigo
for the occasion; being determined that as I was only to get two meals
in the three days, they should be such as a person could fast upon.
Never was there a man more bitterly disappointed; for they were not
thicker than crown-pieces, and I searched for them in my mouth to no
purpose--the only thing like substance I could feel there was the warm
water. At last, night came; but here to describe the horrors of what I
suffered I hold myself utterly inadequate. I was wedged in a shake-down
bed with seven others, one of whom was a Scotch Papist--another a man
with a shrunk leg, who wore a crutch--all afflicted with that disease
which northern men that feed on oatmeal are liable to; and then the
swarms that fell upon my poor young skin, and probed, and stung, and
fed on me! it was pressure and persecution almost insupportable, and yet
such was my fatigue that sleep even here began to weigh down my eyelids.
I was just on the point of enjoying a little rest, when a man ringing
a large hand-bell, came round crying out in a low, supernatural growl,
which could be heard double the distance of the loudest shout--“Waken
up, waken up, and come to the prison!” The words were no sooner out of
his mouth, than there was a sudden start, and a general scramble in the
dark for our respective garments. When we got dressed, we proceeded to
the waters of the lake, in which we washed our face and hands, repeating
prayers during the ablution. This to me was the most impressive and
agreeable part of the whole station. The night, while we were in bed,
or rather in torture, had become quite stormy, and the waves of the lake
beat against the shore with the violence of an agitated sea. There was
just sufficient moon to make the “darkness visible,” and to show the
black clouds drifting with rapid confusion, in broken masses, over our
heads. This, joined to the tossing of the billows against the shore--the
dark silent groups that came, like shadows, stooping for a moment over
the surface of the waters, and retreating again in a manner which the
severity of the night rendered necessarily quick, raising thereby in the
mind the idea of gliding spirits--then the preconceived desolation
of the surrounding scenery--the indistinct shadowy chain of dreary
mountains which, faintly relieved by the lurid sky, hemmed in the
lake--the silence of the forms, contrasted with the tumult of the
elements about us--the loneliness of the place--its isolation and
remoteness from the habitations of men--all this put together, joined
to the feeling of deep devotion in which I was wrapped, had really a
sublime effect upon me. Upon the generality of those who were there,
blind to the natural beauty and effect of the hour and the place, and
viewing it only through the medium of superstitious awe, it was indeed
calculated to produce the notion of something not belonging to the
circumstance and reality of human life.
From this scene we passed to one, which, though not characterized by its
dark, awful beauty, was scarcely inferior to it in effect. It was called
the “Prison,” and it is necessary to observe here, that every pilgrim
must pass twenty-four hours in this place, kneeling, without food or
sleep, although one meal of bread and warm water, and whatever sleep he
could get in Petigo with seven in a bed, were his allowance of food and
sleep during the twenty-four hours previous. I must here beg the good
reader's attention for a moment, with, reference to our penance in the
“Prison.” Let us consider how the nature of this pilgrimage: it must be
performed on foot, no matter what the distance of residence (allowing
for voyages)--the condition of life--the age or the sex of the pilgrim
may be. Individuals from France, from America, England, and Scotland,
visit it--as voluntary devotees, or to perform an act of penance for
some great crime, or perhaps to atone for a bad life in general. It is
performed, too, in the dead heat of summer, when labor is slack, and the
lower orders have sufficient leisure to undertake it; and, I may add,
when travelling on foot is most fatiguing; they arrive, therefore,
without a single exception, blown and jaded almost to death. The first
thing they do, notwithstanding this, is to commence the fresh rigors of
the station, which occupies them several hours. This consists in what
I have already described, viz., the pleasant promenade upon the stony
spikes around the prison and the “beds;” that over, they take their
first and only meal for the day; after which, as in my own case just
related, they must huddle themselves in clusters, on what is barefacedly
called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman's
shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the
vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative
degree. As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused
by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve--first washing
themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison
which I am about to describe. There is not on earth, with the exception
of pagan rites,--and it is melancholy to be compelled to compare any
institution of the Christian religion with a Juggernaut,--there is not
on earth, I say, a regulation of a religious nature, more barbarous
and inhuman than this. It has destroyed thousands since its
establishment--has left children without parents, and parents childless.
It has made wives widows, and torn from the disconsolate husband the
mother of his children; and is itself the monster which St. Patrick is
said to have destroyed in the place--a monster, which is a complete and
significant allegory of this great and destructive superstition.
But what is even worse than death, by stretching the powers of human
sufferance until the mind cracks under them, it is said sometimes
to return these pitiable creatures maniacs--exulting in the laugh
of madness, or sunk for ever in the incurable apathy of religious
melancholy. I mention this now, to exhibit the purpose for which these
calamities are turned to account, and the dishonesty which is
exercised over these poor, unsuspecting people, in consequence of their
occurrence. The pilgrims, being thus aroused at midnight are sent to
prison; and what think you is the impression under which they enter it?
one indeed, which, when we consider their bodily weakness and mental
excitement, must do its work with success. It is this: that as soon as
they enter the prison a supernatural tendency to sleep will come over
them, which, they say, is peculiar to the place; that this is an emblem
of the influence of sin over the soul, and a type of their future fate;
that if they resist this they will be saved; but if they yield to it,
they will not only be damned in the next world, but will go mad, or
incur some immediate and dreadful calamity in this. Is it any wonder
that a weak mind and exhausted body, wrought upon by these bugbears,
should induce upon by itself, by its own terrors, the malady of
derangement? We know that nothing acts so strongly and so fatally upon
reason, as an imagination diseased by religious terrors: and I regret
to say, that I had upon that night an opportunity of witnessing a fatal
instance of it.
After having washed ourselves in the dark waters of the lake, we entered
this famous prison, which is only a naked, unplastered chapel, with
an altar against one of the sides and two galleries. On entering this
place, a scene presented itself altogether unparalleled on the earth,
and in every point of view capable to sustain the feelings raised in the
mind by the midnight scenery of the lake as seen during the ablutions.
The prison was full, but not crowded; for had it been crowded, we would
have been happy. It was, however, just sufficiently filled to give every
individual the pleasure of sustaining himself, without having it in his
power to recline for a moment in an attitude of rest, or to change that
most insupportable of all bodily suffering, uniformity of position.
There we knelt upon a hard ground floor, and commenced praying; and
again I must advert to the policy which prevails in this island.
During the period of imprisonment, there are no prescribed prayers nor
ceremonies whatever to be performed, and this is the more strange, as
every other stage of the station has its proper devotions. But these are
suspended here, lest the attention of the prisoners might be fixed on
any particular object, and the supernatural character of drowsiness
imputed to the place be thus doubted--they are, therefore, turned in
without anything to excite them to attention or to resist the propensity
to sleep occasioned by their fatigue and want of rest Having thus
nothing to do, nothing to sustain, nothing to stimulate them, it is very
natural that they should, even if unexhausted by previous lassitude, be
inclined to sleep; but everything that can weigh them down is laid upon
them in this heavy and oppressive superstition, that the strong delusion
may be kept up.
On entering the prison, I was struck with the dim religious twilight
of the place. Two candles gleamed faintly from the altar, and there was
something I thought of a deadly light about them, as they burned feebly
and stilly against the darkness which hung over the other part of the
building. Two priests, facing the congregation, stood upon the altar in
silence, with pale spectral visages, their eyes catching an unearthly
glare from the sepulchral light of the slender tapers. But that which
was strangest of all, and, as I said before, without a parallel in
this world, was the impression and effect produced by the deep, drowsy,
hollow, hoarse, guttural, ceaseless, and monotonous hum, which proceeded
from about four hundred individuals, half asleep and at prayer; for
their cadences were blended and slurred into each other, as they
repeated, in an awe-struck and earnest undertone, the prayers in which
they were engaged. It was certainly the strangest sound I ever heard,
and resembled a thousand subterraneous groans, uttered in a kind of low,
deep, unvaried chant. Nothing could produce a sense of gloomy alarm in
a weak superstitious mind equal to this; and it derived much of its wild
and singular character, as well as of its lethargic influence, from its
continuity; for it still--still rung lowly and supernaturally on my ear.
Perhaps the deep, wavy prolongation of the bass of a large cathedral
bell, or that low, continuous sound, which is distinct from its higher
and louder intonations, would give a faint notion of it, yet only a
faint one; for the body of hoarse monotony here was immense. Indeed,
such a noise had something so powerfully lulling, that human nature,
even excited by the terrible suggestions of superstitious fear, was
scarcely able to withstand it.
Now the poor pilgrims forget, that this strong disposition to sleep
arises from the weariness produced by their long journeys--by the
exhausting penance of the station, performed without giving them time
to rest--by the other still more natural consequence of not giving
them time to sleep--by the drowsy darkness of the chapel--and by the
heaviness caught from the low peculiar murmur of the pilgrims, which
would of itself overcome the lightest spirit. I was here but a very
short time when I began to doze, and just as my chin was sinking
placidly on my breast, and the words of an Ave Maria dying upon my
lips, I felt the charm all at once broken by a well-meant rap upon the
occiput, conferred through the instrumentality of a little angry-looking
squat urchin of sixty years, and a remarkably good black-thorn cudgel,
with which he was engaged in thwacking the heads of such sinners, as,
not having the dread of insanity and the regulations of the place before
their eyes, were inclined to sleep. I declare the knock I received
told to such a purpose on my head, that nothing occurred during the
pilgrimage that vexed me so much.