red, and spent
some time in looking for the corpse. There was no occasion for fear.
The Achil harvesters going to England and Scotland ride over to the
Sound, where lie the fishing smacks which bear them to Westport, and
then turn their horses loose. The faithful beasts go home, however
long or devious the road, sometimes alone, sometimes in company, only
staying a moment at the parting of the ways to bid each other
good-bye, then going forward at a brisker pace to make up for lost
time.

The hamlet of Cashel, not to be confused with Cashel of the Rock, is
the first sign of life after leaving the Sound. A ravine, with white
cabins, green crops, and huge boulders, on one of which seven small
children were sitting in a row, unwashed, unkempt, with little calico
and no leather. Bunnacurragh has a post-office run by a pensioner who
grows roses, and keeps his place like a picture, the straw ropes which
secure the thatch against the western gales taut and trig, each loose
end terminated by a loop holding a large stone. The stones are used in
place of pegs, and very queer they look dangling all round over the
eaves. Not far from here is an immense basin-like depression of dry
bog. Then a monastery, in the precincts of which the ground is
reclaimed and admirably tilled, the drainage being carried over
ingenious turf conduits, the soil lacking firmness to hold stone or
brick. The vast bulk of Slievemore soon looms full in front, and after
a long stretch of smooth Balfour road and a sharp turn on the edge of
a deep ravine on the right with a high ridge beyond it, the Great
mountain on the left, Dugort, with Blacksod Bay, heaves in sight. A
final spurt up the hilly road and the weary, jolted traveller, or what
is left of him, may (metaphorically) fall into the arms of Mr. Robert
Sheridan, of the Sea View Hotel, or of Mrs. Sheridan, if he likes it
better.

There are two Dugorts, or one Dugort divided against itself. The line
of demarcation is sharp and decided. The two sections stand but a
short distance apart, each on an opposite horn of the little bay, but
the moral distance is great enough for forty thousand leagues. The
Dugort under Slievemore is Protestant, the Dugort of the opposite
cliff is intensely Roman Catholic. The one is the perfection of
neatness, sweetness, cleanliness, prettiness, and order. The other is
dirty, frowsy, disorderly, and of evil odour. The Papists deny the
right of the Protestants to be in the islan