ays in Ireland had been
constructed. (original footnote by Trollope)]

[FOOTNOTE 16: vis inertiae--(Latin) the power of inertia]

[FOOTNOTE 17: _Macbeth_, Act I, Sc. 3: "Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."]

I hardly know why a journey in one of these boats should be much more
intolerable than travelling either outside or inside a coach; for,
either in or on the coach, one has less room for motion, and less
opportunity of employment. I believe the misery of the canal-boat
chiefly consists in a pre-conceived and erroneous idea of its
capabilities. One prepares oneself for occupation--an attempt is made
to achieve actual comfort--and both end in disappointment; the limbs
become weary with endeavouring to fix themselves in a position of
repose, and the mind is fatigued more by the search after, than the
want of, occupation.

Martin, however, made no complaints, and felt no misery. He made great
play at the eternal half-boiled leg of mutton, floating in a bloody sea
of grease and gravy, which always comes on the table three hours after
the departure from Porto Bello. He, and others equally gifted with
the _dura ilia messorum_ [18], swallowed huge collops [19] of the raw
animal, and vast heaps of yellow turnips, till the pity with which a
stranger would at first be inclined to contemplate the consumer of such
unsavoury food, is transferred to the victim who has to provide the
meal at two shillings a head. Neither love nor drink--and Martin had,
on the previous day, been much troubled with both--had affected his
appetite; and he ate out his money with the true persevering prudence
of a Connaught man, who firmly determines not to be done.

[FOOTNOTE 18: dura ilia messorum--(Latin) the strong intestines
of reapers--a quotation from Horace's _Epodes_ III.
Trollope was an accomplished Latin scholar and later
wrote a _Life of Cicero_. His books are full of
quotations from many Roman writers.]

[FOOTNOTE 19: collops--portions of food or slices of meat]

He was equally diligent at breakfast; and, at last, reached
Ballinasloe, at ten o'clock the morning after he had left Dublin, in a
flourishing condition. From thence he travelled, by Bianconi's car, as
far as Tuam, and when there he went at once to the hotel, to get a hack
car to take him home to Dunmore.