182?.] 



Domestic and Fc 



535 



and altogether the first residence of a nobleman 

 the country around, a green sheep walk ; now not 

 a vestige of all this is to be seen ; one common 

 waste of sand, one undistinguished ruin cover all. 

 Where is the house ? under the sand where the 

 trees, the walks, the terraces, the preen parks and 

 sheep walks? all under the sand. Lately, the top 

 of the house was visible, and the country people 

 used to descend by the roof into some of the apart- 

 ments that were not filled up ; but now nothing is 

 to be seen. The spirit of the Western Ocean has 

 risen in his wrath, and realised here the descrip- 

 tion Bruce gives of the moving pillars of sand in 

 the deserts of Sennaar, &c. 



Not far from this spot is a very singular 

 natural phenomenon, which in the neigh- 

 bourhood has the name of McSwine's 

 Gun: 



It is caused by a horizontal cavern running for 

 many yards under the cliff, from whence a per- 

 pendicular shaft rises to the surface. This parti- 

 cular point lies open to the north-west, and when 

 the tempest sets in from that quarter, the storm 

 forces the sea with tremendous power into the 

 cavern, and whenever the gale is most frightful, 

 and an immense surge beats in, up flies the water 

 through the perpendicular shaft, like the Gieser 

 spring in Iceland, some hundreds of feet high, ac- 

 companied with a report louder than any piece of 

 artillery, and the shot of McSwine's Gun is assert- 

 ed to have been heard in the city of Berry (thirty 

 miles). 



'While in the county of Donegal he visits 

 what is still called Patrick's Purgatory, in 

 one of the islets of Lough Derg. This seems 

 to have heen of old a place of some cele- 

 brity, where an exhibition of the penalties of 

 purgatory were got up in high theatric style, 

 pretty much on what has been supposed to 

 be the plan of the old Eleusinian, or Samo- 

 thracian mysteries. It is still the object of 

 pilgrimage, and the scene of severe mortifi- 

 cation. It was not what is called " station" 

 time, when the author visiled it ; but a friend 

 of his, who timed his visit better, gives the 

 following account of it: 



The island is about half a mile from the shore ; 

 on approaching it we found all the people walking 

 round one of the buildings in the direction of the 

 sun. There are two chapels: one for confession, 

 and another for general worship. In the former 

 no strangers are admitted ; but on entering the 

 latter by one of the galleries, a mighty multitude 

 of the most apparently devout worshippers I ever 

 beheld, presented themselves. All were kneeling 

 except the choir, and every one busy for himself, 

 without the smallest interruption from his neigh- 

 bour. The only instruments they used were their 

 beads, crucifix, and manual. Their food is a 

 small quantity of bread, which they bring into 

 the island with them, and water, which, by the 

 priest's blessing, is supposed to be made equally 

 nutritive as wine. They take this only once a day, 

 except when in the prison, where they remain 

 twenty-four hours. During this period they are 

 prohibited from tasting food of any kind. Twenty- 

 four priests are the regular number for officiating 

 in this place, each one hour. The prison is a 

 dungeon, into which the light of day is not al- 



lowed to enter. A man with a switch is kept in 

 regular exercise here, to keep the pilgrims in a 

 wakeful state. Slei-p is very dangerous, for a 

 single nod may lose the soul for ever, without the 

 interference of all the fathers and saints of the 

 calendar, and a considerable sum of money. 



The property of the place, it seems, is with 

 a Colonel L., a relation of the Duke of Wel- 

 lington, who leases the ferry to the island 

 at 280 a year; and to make up that sum, 

 and obtain a suitable profit for themselves, 

 the ferrymen charge each pilgrim fivepence. 

 Therefore, supposing the contractors to make 

 cent, percent, by the contract, which it may 

 be supposed they do, the number of pilgrims 

 will amount to 13,000. Each pilgrim, too, 

 it appears pays from Is. 8d. to 2s. (jd. to the 

 priests, which will swell the income of the 

 priests, or whoever pockets the fees, to 

 J,<500 a year. 



In the county of Cork the writer came to 

 a river, which divides tfee estates of the Mar- 

 quis of Lansdowne and Trinity College, Dub- 

 lin. The difference between the two estates 

 appeared very striking: 



" Arc you a tenant of Lord Lansdowne's," ad- 

 dressing a man whom he met on the road. " Ah, 

 no, Sir, and more is my loss ! No, Sir, if it were 

 my luck to be under the great Marquis, I would 

 not be the poor naked sinking crathur that I am ; 

 his lordship allows his tenants to live and thrive ; 

 he permits no middle men to set and re-set over 

 and over again his estate ; he allows no Jack of a 

 squireen to be riding in top-boots over the country, 

 drinking and carousing on the profits of the 

 ground, while the poor racked tenant is forced, 

 with all his labour, often to go barefooted, and 

 often to live and work on a meal of dry potatoes. 

 No, Sir, look across the river there, look yonder 

 at that snuo: farmer's house ; there the man's fore- 

 fathers lived, and there he himself, and his seed 

 after, will live, and do well, paying a moderate 

 rent, and there's no fear at all of their being dis- 

 turbed." '' Well, but my friend, on your side of 

 the river, is it not the same? To be sure, I see 

 not so much comfort ; I see many, very many 

 poor cabins." " Oh, Sir, how could it be other- 

 wise? There are twenty landlords between the 

 college and the man who tills the ground ; the 

 land is let, re-let, and sub-let ; it is halved and 

 quartered, divided and sub-divided, until the whole 

 place will become a place of poverty and potatoe 

 gardens. I have four acres of land ; how can I live 

 and rear my children, and pay thirty shillings an 

 acre off that? and I am subject to have my pig, or 

 the bed from under me, canted by one, two, three, 

 four och, I do not know how many landlords, &c. 

 Och, then it's I that wishes that the great college 

 that does be making men so lamed and wise, 

 would send down some of these lamed people 

 here, just to be after making their own poor te- 

 nants a little happier and a little asier." 



Yes ; and if the college will not, the legis- 

 lature should force them, and force them in 

 time, or by and by it will be " needs must 

 when the devil drives." 



Croc kf or d House, a Rhapsody ; 1827. 

 For " country cousins" the name of Crock- 



