pful men, who have
always stuck up for him, and to follow the advice of the quarrelsome,
unsuccessful, unfriendly men, who have always spoken ill of him and
have spent their energies in trying to damage him. Bull must be a
fool--or rather he would be if he meant to act in this foolish way. He
will not do so; that can never be. But why waste so much time?"

I submitted that this waste was due to Mr. Gladstone, and not to
England at all. He said--

"There is no England now. There's nothing left but Gladstone."

Of course he was wrong, but the mistake is one that under present
circumstances any loyal Irishman might easily make.

Mulranney (Co. Mayo), June 17th.

No. 37.--ON ACHIL ISLAND.

The final spurt from Mulranney to Achil Sound was pleasant, but devoid
of striking incident. This part of the line is packed and ballasted,
and the _Gazette_ engine sobered down to the merely commonplace,
dropping her prancing and curveting, with other deplorable excesses of
the first two runs, and pushing my comfortable truck with the
steadiness of a well-broken steed. No holding on was required, as we
ran between the two ranges of mountains which guard the Sound, and
along the edge of a salt-water creek, which seemed to be pushing its
investigations inland. Barring the scenery the ride became
uninteresting by its very safety. The line for the most part is based
upon the living rock, and there were no exciting skims over
treacherous bogs, no reasonable chance of running off the line, no ups
and downs such as on our first flight were remindful of the switchback
railway, no hopping, jumping, or skipping. Anybody could have ridden
from Mulranney to Achil. There was no merit in the achievement. All
you had to do was to sit still and look about. You could no longer
witch the world with noble truckmanship. We ran over a bridge built to
replace one washed away by a mountain torrent. The engineer who
constructed the first had failed to realise that the tinkling rivulet
of summer became in winter a fiercely surging cataract. The Achil
Mountains loomed in full view, Croaghaun to the left, Sliebhmor
(pronounced Slievemore) the Great Mountain, in front, with many others
stranger still of name. Then the Sound came in sight, with the iron
viaduct-bridge which has turned the island into a peninsula. Then the
final dismount, and a scramble among rusty rails, embankments,
sleepers, and big boulders strewn about in hopeless chaos. Then the