ul story of want,
saying that not a morsel of food had they tasted for twenty-four hours.
He lighted a wisp of straw and showed us one or two more children lying
in another nook of the cave. Their mother had died, and he was obliged
to leave them alone during most of the day, in order to glean something
for their subsistence. We were soon among the most wretched habitations
that I had yet seen; far worse than those in Skibbereen. Many of them
were flat-roofed hovels, half buried in the earth, or built up against
the rocks, and covered with rotten straw, sea-weed, or turf. In one
which was scarcely seven foot square, we found five persons prostrate
with the fever, and apparently near their end. A girl about sixteen, the
very picture of despair, was the only one left who could administer any
relief; and all she could do was to bring water in a broken pitcher to
slaken their parched lips. As we proceeded up a rocky hill overlooking
the sea, we encountered new sights of wretchedness. Seeing a cabin
standing somewhat by itself in a hollow, and surrounded by a moat of
green filth, we entered it with some difficulty, and found a single
child about three years old lying on a kind of shelf, with its little
face resting upon the edge of the board and looking steadfastly out at
the door, as if for its mother. It never moved its eyes as we entered,
but kept them fixed toward the entrance. It is doubtful whether the poor
thing had a mother or father left to her; but it is more doubtful still,
whether those eyes would have relaxed their vacant gaze if both of them
had entered at once with anything that could tempt the palate in their
hands. No words can describe this peculiar appearance of the famished
children. Never have I seen such bright, blue, clear eyes looking so
steadfastly at nothing. I could almost fancy that the angels of God had
been sent to unseal the vision of these little patient, perishing
creatures, to the beatitudes of another world; and that they were
listening to the whispers of unseen spirits bidding them to "wait a
little longer." Leaving this, we entered another cabin in which we found
seven or eight attenuated young creatures, with a mother who had pawned
her cloak and could not venture out to beg for bread because she was not
fit to be seen in the streets. Hearing the voice of wailing from a
cluster of huts further up the hill, we proceeded to them, and entered
one, and found several persons weeping over the de