tle, and they depended on their milk and butter
for paying their rent, and purchasing the necessaries of life. Their
mode of carrying butter to Cork was curious. I have often seen crowds
of thirty, forty, or fifty men, seated on little ill-formed horses,
which had two panniers swinging on the back, containing frequently
only a single firkin of butter in one, and a stone in the other, the
man being seated between. They fed their horses on the road-side,
never entering an inn-yard; and they generally travelled by night. No
one would trust another with his property; and on their journey of
forty Irish miles, they expended no money. The scythe was their
farming-implement to cut such coarse hay as grew in the bottoms near
rivers. On Whitsunday, whoever could keep possession of a large stone
called _Carrigun na Killeagh_, was champion for the year, and the
party to which he belonged was triumphant until the next annual
battle. On one occasion, the battle was almost ended, the champion was
possessor of the stone for nearly the prescribed time; he gave one
cheer of victory, then another, and was about to give the crowning
cheer, when a signal was made to a pensioner, who had been hired for
the purpose, and placed in ambush. He fired, and the ball pierced the
conqueror's neck, without mortally wounding him. The man fell, and
while on the ground, was seen pulling the moss and grass around him,
and stuffing them into the wound, to prevent the flow of blood, that
he might again mount the rock of victory. The next day he was seen out
of doors by the doctor, for whom his wife had secretly sent; and after
much entreaty, his determination not to allow the opposite party to
know that he had been seriously hurt was overcome, and he permitted
the doctor to examine the wound, and replace the styptics of his own
providing with more scientific remedies.

Another story of the barbarism of the people was told me on my
journey. A farmer's cow had momentarily trespassed on another man's
land, one of a hostile faction. The farmer offered to pay for the
damage, but the reply he received was a shot which killed him on the
spot. His brother, who saw the catastrophe, ran to raise the victim;
but the man had already reloaded his gun, and shot the brother dead. A
third brother, having seen the two fall, ran to the succour so
quickly, that the murderer had not time to complete the reloading of
his gun; and as a crowd was collecting, he ran off. Mr C----