18 DUBLIN UNIVERSITY 



The year 1835 was memorable in another respect. In it he accom- 

 plished a visit to the islands of Arran, lying off the west coast of Ire- 

 land, at the entrance of Galway Bay. His companion was the Very 

 Rev. Henry R. Dawson, Dean of St. Patrick's, whose splendid collection 

 of antiquities now graces the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 

 The excursion occupied only nine days. Immediately after his return 

 Mr. Ball committed all the little incidents of the tour to writing, in the 

 form of a journal addressed to one of his sisters. Nearly a quarter of a 

 century has since passed by, and Time has been busy in the interval, 

 changing to the visitor the mode of locomotion, and much that was pe- 

 culiar in the physical and mental characteristics of the inhabitants. 

 Some interest attaches to the narrative, as conveying the impressions 

 formed by two observant and intelligent travellers ; but the extracts 

 now given have been selected for a different reason. They convey the 

 most truthful, the most unstudied evidence of the mind of him by whom 

 they were written. They show his quickness of observation, and his 

 range of zoological knowledge ; his quiet enjoyment of the ludicrous, 

 and his wish practically to inculcate anything useful. In the peculiar 

 and somewhat antiquated style of expression, those who were intimate 

 with him will recognise phrases that to him were habitual. The Dean 

 appears throughout in the most amiable light, putting up good-humour- 

 edly with the rude accommodation which the locality afforded, and de- 

 sirous on all occasions of forwarding the pursuits of his companion. 



The travellers started from Dublin by the night-mail on Monday, 

 the 8th of June, and reached Galway next morning. The Journal, 

 which is termed by its writer, " Account of a Travel into Arran and 

 county of Galway," informs us that they sought a " native boat," and 

 started for Arran il in a miserable hooker, laden with salt and women, 

 taking as a sea-store two lobsters." It fell calm, so that they had to 

 remain on board during the night, but " had the use of the quarter- 

 deck conjointly with an old woman, who never had a cap, bonnet, shoes, 

 or stockings ; and a sailor, fisher, smuggler, who never had his feet 

 cased in aught but pomputies, with a Gospel tied about his neck to pro- 

 tect him from peril at sea and dangers by land, and for which he had 

 paid his priest half-a-crown." The peculiar article of dress just men- 

 tioned as worn on the feet of the sailor is thus explained : — 



" The pomputie is the only peculiarity in the dress of the men. It 

 is a sort of shoe made of a single bit of raw hide, drawn up. by two 



