The land as we neared Cong, between Cong and Lough Mask, as seen from
the rather roundabout road we travelled, has a very peculiar appearance.
It is stony with a very different stoniness from any part of Ireland
which I had seen before. In some places the earth, as far as the eye
could reach, was literally crusted with stone. The stone was worn into
rounded tops and channelled hollows, as if it was once molten, like red
hot potash, and every bubbling swell had become suddenly petrified, or
as if it had once been an uptilted hillside over which a rapid river had
fallen, wearing little hollows, and sparing rounded heights as it dashed
over in boiling fury for ages, accomplishing which result it deserted
this channel; and through some internal movement the bed of the torrent
was levelled into a plain. Some agency or other has worn this solid rock
into a truffle pattern that is very wonderful to see. Over all this part
the stony formation recurs again and again. A person remarked to me that
it looked like the bottom of a former ocean. Judging by the marks worn
into the stone I should say it was not a pacific ocean.
We came to a blacksmith's shop with the arch of the door formed into a
perfect horse-shoe; this, I was told, was the boundary line between Mayo
and Galway. In a few minutes we stopped before the "Carlisle Arms," in
the little village of Cong. Cong village is not very large, and has not
a wealthy appearance. There is a look generally spread over the people
who come in to trade as if their fortune was as stoney as their fields.
I had not been long in the "Carlisle Arms" before my attention was
called to certain framed mementos that hung round the room. By some of
these mementos hung the tale as to how Cong hotel came to be named the
"Carlisle Arms." On a certain occasion, when the then Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, the Earl of Carlisle, was making some sort of progress through
Ireland, he proposed stopping at the hotel at Maam, a hotel under the
thumb of the late Lord Leitrim, who had some pique at the Lord
Lieutenant, which determined him to order under pain of the usual
penalty that there be no admittance to the Viceroy of Ireland at this
hotel. His Lordship for once felt the power of a text of Scripture, and
sent orders that from the highways and hedges they should be compelled
to come in; that his house should be filled to the entire exclusion of
Her Majesty's representative. Lord Carlisle did not, like Mr. Goddard
the other day at Charleville, proffer money, or take any steps to try
the lawfulness or unlawfulness of this proceeding, but, having sent a
courier to precede him, hurried on to Cong, and conferred the
distinction of his presence on that hotel. That the proprietors did
their best to entertain him I have no doubt, speaking from experience.
That he appreciated their efforts he has left on record in a neat
acknowledgement, which hangs above the mantlepiece framed and glazed, as
Uncle Tom desired to do with his letter from Massa George. The Lord
Lieutenant's photo hangs there too, in a nice frame, as a memento of his
having been received at Cong when refused at Maam. Also he consented
that the hotel should be known as the "Carlisle Arms" henceforth. I
wonder very much that there was not at least as much public indignation
felt against Lord Leitrim or the innkeeper whom he influenced when he
refused shelter to Her Majesty's representative here, the head of the
executive, as is now expressed against this hotel-keeper, who refused to
receive Mr. Goddard. I suppose the cases are different someway.
During the famine time a large sum of money was voted, partly by
Government, partly from the county taxes, for Relief Works. It was
determined to make a canal to connect Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. The
canal was made at the expense of much blasting, much building of strong
and costly stone work. If they could only have resurrected the famous
Irish architect _Gobhan Saer_, he would have advised making a well-
cemented bottom for the canal considering that a subterraneous river
runs from one lake to the other under it. They did not do this, however,
and when the grand canal was finished and the water let on the bottom
fell out in places and the waters fell through to their kindred waters.
The next famine they will require to dig and blast downward and still
downward till they find the underground river and the runaway water.
Coming past the costly and well-built bridge which spans the almost dry
stream that pours into the leaky canal somewhere, I saw some women round
a hollow in the stream that retained a little water. They were rinsing
out some woollen stuffs after dying them blue. They had warm petticoats
of madder red, and I was glad to see them look so comfortably clad and
thrifty.
After returning to the hotel I was waited on by an elderly lady of the
peasant class, a woman over eighty years of age. She had for sale some
pillow lace edging of her own manufacture, which she offered at
threepence per yard. This was the way she made her living, paid her rent
and kept herself out of the workhouse. The lace was pretty and very
strong. She generally succeeds in disposing of it to lady tourists.
There were some lady tourists as well as gentlemen staying at Cong. They
were on pleasure bent, and had been dreadfully annoyed and disgusted in
Galway at the heartbreaking scene attending the departure of some poor
Irish emigrants. They are unreasonable in their grief, and take parting
as if it were death; but it is as death to many of the aged relatives
who will see these faces whom they love no more. I could not help
thinking how differently people are constituted. When I saw the
streaming eyes, the faces swollen with weeping, and heard the agonized
exclamations, the calls upon God for help to bear the parting, for a
blessing on the departing, I had to weep with them. These people were
all indignation where they were not amused. The old women's cries were
ill-bred howlings to their ears, their grief a thing to laugh at. They
made fun of their dress--how they were got up--as if their dress was a
matter of choice; grew indignant in describing their disgust at the
scene. Ah, well, these poor mountain peasants were not their neighbors,
they were people to be looked at, laughed at, sneered at, and passed by
on the other side; but I--these people are my people and their sorrow
moveth me.