_Oughterarde_ is termed the entrance to Connamara, but the boundaries
seem somewhat undefined, like the sensations induced by the wildly
beautiful scenery,
“The vague emotion of delight
While climbing up some Alpine height.”
Measured and mapped _Connamara_ may be, but painted or described it
never can. Those sublime landscapes of mountain, moor, and mere, are
photographed on the memory for ever, but cannot be reproduced on canvas;
and a great master of art, a _Michael Angelo (Tilmarsh)_ throws down
his brush, with the wise confession, “all that we can do is to cry,
Beautiful!” Who shall take it up, and paint? Not mine, a prentice
hand, to daub a caricature (about as like the original, as a pastile to
Vesuvius, or a “cinder-tip” to the Himalayas) of those glorious Irish
Alps, of the _Maum-Turk_ mountains, or of _Bina Beola_, rising, in
solemn majesty, amid a sea of golden and roseate flowers. It requires a
confidence which I do not feel, to attempt the Hallelujah Chorus on my
penny trumpet, or, where Phidias distrusts his chisel, to commence a
Colossus with my knife and fork. But I shall never forget our silent
happiness, a happiness like childhood's, so complete and pure, as, mile
after mile, we watched the sunlight and the shadows, sweeping over hill,
and lake, and plain, (so swiftly that every minute the whole view seemed
to change), and saw the snow-white goats among the purple heath, and the
kine, jet-black and glowing red, knee-deep in the silver waters.
But there are minds no scenery can delight or awe. I remember, how,
travelling by rail, one glorious morning in December, the trees all hoar
with frost, and glittering against a sky blue as the turquoise, I met a
Cockney gent, who condescendingly surveyed the scene, and said that “it
reminded him of _Storr and Mortimers!_ The water was very like those
plate-glass things, which were used to set off the silver, and the trees
a good deal resembled the candelabra clustered above.” And he smiled as
one who was pleased to approve the article which Nature humbly submitted
to his inspection, and seemed, out of his overflowing goodness, to pat
Creation's head. And now, seated upon the box, a “party” from Sheffield
insulted that pure delicious atmosphere with very villainous “shag,”
and talked as flippantly and without restraint, as though he were in the
Chair at “The Cutler's Arms,” presiding over a Free-and-Easy. No sooner
did he ascertain from the driver that the grand Highlands before us were
known as “_The Twelve Pins_” than he desired the company to inform him,
“what degree of relationship existed between them and the _Needles_
off the Isle of Wight?” a genealogical problem, which would have been
received with a due and dignified silence, but for his own unrestrained
applause and laughter. Then he favoured us with an enigma, “Why have
them pins no _pints?_ Because they're principally composed of _quartz!_”
His geology he had got from a guidebook, out of which he treated us to
various extracts, appending commentaries of his own. “Miss Martineau
says the hair 'ere” (of course he transplanted every h) “is very like
breathing cream. Wonder whether the old gal meant cream of the valley,
or milk-punch--ha! ha! ha!”
From this subject he passed very naturally to mountain dew, and
the illegal manufacture of whiskey, shouting at the top of his voice,
“I cannot help loving thee, _Still_;” and then singing, “_Still_, I love
thee, _Still_, I love thee,”--“_Fare thee well_, and if for ever,
Still, for ever fare thee well” (the music by Mr. Joseph Miller), until,
happily for us, his pipe went out, and playfully wondering “how he
should obtain a light, when all around was _matchless_,” he collapsed
into a state of quiet suction, like a gold fish in a vase.
Incidents, in a country unreclaimed and almost uninhabited, must
necessarily be small and infrequent, like the currants on an Irish cake.
We had a change of horses at the _Half-way House_ (half-way between
_Oughterarde_ and _Ballinahinch_), and this rapid flight of horsemanship
was performed something under the half-hour. I took advantage of the
interval to recline on the green sward hard by, and commenced, in dreamy
enjoyment, a silent oration to the scenes around. “_O Connamara_,” I
began, “_non amarat sed amcena!_ let me hear and heed thy sermons in
stones, though thine own sons be deaf to them.”
Alas! for the sad contrast, where every prospect pleases, and only man
is vile! 1 Why should not fields of golden corn, and orchards heavy
with fruit, bring plenty from thy fertile plains? Why should rank weeds,
rag-wort, and loose strife, (evil signs and sounds!) usurp thy untilled
soil, a 'soyle most fertile,' as old Spenser saith, 'fit to yielde all
kinde of fruit that shall be committed thereunto?'” And the answer
which I heard, “awaking with a start” from my reverie, was a surly grunt
close to my ear, and a loud laugh from Frank, who thus perpetuated the
_tableau vivant_:
1 Lord Chesterfield spoke of Ireland as “that country for
which God has done so much, and man so little.”
[Illustration: 092]
We lunched at “_The Recess_,” a pleasant little inn (with a cheerful
landlady and civil waitress), but somewhat damp withal; for Ireland is
“the Niobe of nations,” 1 and, as the beautiful bride of the Atlantic,
ofttimes weeps in her western home, when her husband is at low water,
or subject to lunar influence. But there is no time for metaphor or
meteorology, the cutler having already scooped the interior from the
heads of both the lobsters, and it being quite necessary to propose
some saving clause to this sweeping Act of shellfishness. “I am no
gastronomer,” as the old lady observed, when they asked her to go out
and see the comet, but I do acknowledge, in unison with the majority
of my fellowmen, the powerful fascinations of lobster; and I shall not
shrink from the confession, that our feelings, as we witnessed this
gross monopoly, were hot and acid as the pepper and the vinegar, which
was almost all he left us.
1 “If,” writes Mr. Young, in his _Tour in Ireland_, “as much
rain fell upon the clays of England as upon the rocks of the
sister country, they could not be cultivated.” I should
doubt this, taking into account our modern improvements as to
drainage; but, at all events, it is evident that “the
humidity of the climate renders Ireland decidedly better
fitted for a grazing than for an agricultural country.”--
See M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire,
ed. 2, vol. ii., p. 367.
At the same time, it may be said, in mitigation of his ill-taste and
our ill-temper, that the love of the lobster has ere now troubled the
equanimity of greater and better men; and I have seen a noble Duke scowl
malignantly at an unconscious Earl, whose plate preceded his own.
But all ended well, for our greedy knife-grinder having finished his
lobster, two bottles of Guinness, one ditto Bass, and a go of whiskey
“for luck,” had scarcely ascended the box, and favoured us with that
assurance of plethory, which the Chinese expect as a compliment from all
well-bred (and well-fed) guests, than his head began slowly to fall and
rise, like a large float, lazily influenced by some undecided fish; and
he only intruded himself upon our silent admiration of that magnificent
scenery with occasional imitations of swine asleep.
There was a time when the Martins ruled in _Connamara_, and
_Ballinahinch_, which we now pass, was the palace of Richardus Rex; when
Lord Lieutenants were told plainly, that the excellent claret they
were drinking had _done_ its duty, without discharging it; and gaugers,
bailiffs, writ-servers, and the like, were as rare upon the mountains as
the Irish elk. The estate extended to _Oughterarde_, some six and
twenty miles away, and “_Martins Gate-house_” is shown there still; but
extravagance and neglect brought all to the hammer at last, and the
very name of Martin will soon only survive, in its association with
the humane Act for the prevention of cruelty to animals, which was
originated by the Lord of _Ballinahinch_. The Law Life Insurance Company
are now the owners of this property, and are making, we were informed,
very great improvements. There can scarcely be an estate more capable
thereof. The immense extent of bog-land presents an excellent “fall”
for the drainer; and a large quantity of it, lying upon limestone,
would grow any amount of pasture or of cereal produce. (The monosyllable
_corn_ would be equally expressive, but it looks “mean and poky,”
as Martha Penny said of the Protestant religion, when compared with
“_cereal produce_”) Then there is abundance of manure close by, in the
sea-weed and coral-sand; and under the soil lie rich veins of marble,
rose-colour, and yellow, and, white, and green; and of which you may
purchase specimens from the little merchants who come round the car. But
where, it may well be asked, are the hands to ply the mattock and pick?
For famine, and ejection, and the Exodus, have swept away the working
men; and though it is evident, from the number of children, that great
efforts are being made to repopulate the country, there seems to be no
staff on the spot for any large undertakings. 1 But men are to be
found when they are wanted by master-minds; and the Irish and English
labourers, instead of deserting for America and Australia a land so
full of promise, 2 would readily be induced, by leaders of energy and
capital, to appropriate advantages nearer home. The sale of encumbered
estates (one of the cleverest, cleanest cuts, that surgeon ever made, to
save his patient from mortification) amply justifies the healthful hope
that English and Scotch farmers 3 will soon be numerous upon Irish
soil, not to become, like the Norman visitors of yore, “_ipsis Hibernis
Hiberniores_,” but to inoculate Paddy with their own activity and
earnestness, and to persuade him, just for once and by way of a change,
to work in his own land, as he can and will in any other.
1 According to the Report of the Registrar-General, the
population has decreased to the number of half a million
since the Census of 1851.
2 See Letters from The Times' Commissioner, ed. 2, p. 271,
and The Saxon in Ireland, chapter x.
3 “Why are there so many more Scotch than English? It
appears that there are 756 'Britishers' agriculturally
settled in Ireland, and of these 660 are natives of
Scotland.”--Agricultural and Social State of Ireland in
1858, by Thomas Miller.
The Saxon says that the Celt (how one despises those malicious
nicknames, stereotyping hate, and perpetuating a lie, as if there were a
true Celt or Saxon extant!) that the Celt will shoot him; and, perhaps,
he may if nothing is done to conciliate, but everything to offend his
prejudices. Those prejudices are the growth of ages, and will not vanish
before slang and compulsion, but only before goodness, teaching
by example a better and a happier way. If I wish to propitiate a
high-spirited unbroken steed, not warranted free from vice, and can do
so by checking him sharply with the curb, and by sticking in both spurs,
without ruining the horse, and finding myself in a position to take an
uninterrupted view of the firmament, Mr. Rarey and reason plead in vain.
John Bull is a magnificent fellow, but his mere repetition of “curse the
Pope” will do no more to evangelise mankind than Grip the Raven's “I'm a
Protestant kettle;” nor can we specify any signal blessings as likely
to accrue to the human race, when “Sawney, with his Calvinistic creed in
the one hand, and allaying irritation with the other,” denounces smiling
on Sunday as a deadly sin, or goes
“Bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke,
At crippled Papistry to butt and poke,
Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull
Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak.”
Were I desirous to impress upon the people of Connaught the advantages
of protecting their feet with leather, I should scarcely proceed to
demonstrate my proposition by kicking them with hobnailed boots; and
although bread as an article of food is vastly superior to potatoes, few
men would essay to enforce this argument by pelting the peasantry with
quartern loaves.
The Saxon says that the Celt will shoot him; and nothing can be more
vile and despicable than those cowardly murders which disgrace Ireland.
But we must not forget, in our righteous horror, that our own capital
convictions are thrice as numerous, according to population, as those
in the sister-country; and, though this does not denote the exact
proportion of crime, because conviction in Ireland is far more difficult
than with us, it may still suggest a wholesome restraint, when we are
minded to sit in judgment upon others.