ees are visible, bleached by exposure to a ghastly white,
showing against the jetty soil like the bones of extinct giants, which
indeed they are. The inhabitants say that the island was once covered
by a great forest, which perished by fire, and Misther Patrick Toolis,
with that love of fine words which marks the Irish peasant, said that
the charred interior of the scattered remains proves that the trees
were "desthroyed intirely by a grate confiscation." The heather, of
two kinds, is brilliantly purple, and the Royal fern grows everywhere
in profusion, its terra-cotta bloom often towering six feet high. The
mountains are effectively arranged, and imposing by their massiveness,
height, and rugged grandeur. Some of the roads are tolerable, those
made by Mr. Balfour being by far the best. Others are execrable and
dangerous in the extreme, and in winter must be almost impassable.
Sometimes they run along a narrow ridge which in its normal condition
was of barely sufficient width to carry the car, and it often happens
that part of this has fallen away, so that the gap must be passed by
leading the horse while the car scrapes along with one wheel on the
top and one clinging to the side of the abyss. The natives make light
of such small inconveniences, and for the most part ride on horseback
with saddles and crupper-bands of plaited rye-straw. Every householder
has a horse or an ass, mostly a horse, and young girls career adown
the mountain sides in what seems the maddest, most reckless way,
guiding their half-broken, mustard-coloured steeds with a single rein
of plaited straw, adjusted in an artful way which is beyond me to
describe. Very quaint they look, on their yellow horses, which remind
you of D'Artagnan's orange-coloured charger, immortalised by Dumas in
the "Three Musketeers;" their red robes floating in the breeze, their
bare feet hanging over the horse's right flank. When they fall off
they simply get on again. They seldom or never are hurt. They are hard
as nails and lissom as cats. Dr. Croly, of Dugort, saw a girl thrown
heels over head, turning a complete somersault from the horse's back.
She alighted on her feet, grabbed the rein, bounded up again, and
gaily galloped away. During my hundred miles riding and walking over
the island I saw many riderless horses, fully accoutred in the Achil
style, plodding patiently along the moorland roads, climbing the steep
mountain paths. At first I thought an accident had occur