y the sept, before the native chieftains had
converted themselves into landlords, and defeated Sir John Davies's
attempt to convert their tribal kinsmen into peasant proprietors.

Whatever its origin, it had reduced Gweedore, or "Tullaghobegly," fifty
years ago to barbarism. Nearly nine thousand people then dwelt here with
never a landlord among them. There was no "Coercion" in Gweedore,
neither was there a coach nor a car to be found in the whole district.
The nominal owners of the small properties into which the district was
divided knew little and cared less about them. The rents were usually
"made by the tenants,"--a step in advance, it will be seen, of the
system which the collective wisdom of Great Britain has for the last
twenty years been trying to establish in Ireland. But they were only
paid when it was convenient. An agent of one of these properties who
travelled fourteen miles one day to collect some rents gave it up and
drove back again, because the "day was too bad" for him to wander about
in the mountains on the chance of finding the tenants at home and
disposed to give him a trifle on account. On most of the properties
there were arrears of eight, ten, and twenty years' standing.

There was one priest in the district, and one National School, the
schoolmaster, with a family of nine persons, receiving the munificent
stipend of eight pounds a year. These nine thousand people, depending
absolutely upon tillage and pasture, owned among them all one cart and
one plough, eight saddles, two pillions, eleven bridles, and thirty-two
rakes! They had no means of harrowing their lands but with meadow rakes,
and the farms were so small that from four to ten farms could be
harrowed in a day with one rake.

Their beds were of straw, mountain grass, or green and dried rushes.
Among the nine thousand people there were but two feather-beds, and but
eight beds stuffed with chaff. There were but two stables and six
cow-houses in the whole district. None of the women owned more than one
shift, nor was there a single bonnet among them all, nor a looking-glass
costing more than threepence.

The climate and the scenery took the fancy of Lord George. He made up
his mind to see what could be done with this forgotten corner of the
world, and to that end bought up as he could the small and scattered
properties, till he had invested the greater part of his small fortune,
and acquired about twenty thousand acres of land. Of this,