AVOCA. 125 



glens ring again, as the Brocken might ring on a Walpurgis- 

 nio'ht. 



At last, pausing on the top of a hill, we could hear voices 

 on the opposite side of the glen. Shouts and '' cooeys " soon 

 brought us to the party which were awaiting us. We hurried 

 joyfully down a steep hill-side, across a shallow ford, and 

 then up another hill-side this time with care, for the felled 

 logs and brushwood lay all about a path full of stumps, and 

 we needed a guide to show us our way in the moonlight up 

 to the hospitable house above. And a right hospitable house 

 it was. Its owner, a French gentleman of ancient Irish 

 family whose ancestors probably had gone to France as one 

 of the valiant " Irish Brigade ; " whose children may have 

 emigrated thence to St. Domingo, and their children or 

 grand- children again to Trinidad had prepared for us in 

 the wilderness a right sumptuous feast : " nor did any 

 soul lack aught of the equal banquet." 



We went to bed : or rather I did. For here, as else- 

 where before and after, I was compelled, by the courtesy 

 of the Governor, to occupy the one bed of the house, as 

 being the oldest, least acclimatized, and alas ! weakliest of tlie 

 party; while he, his little suite, and the owner of the house, 

 slept anywhere upon the floor; on which, between fatigue 

 and enjoyment of the wild life, I would have gladly slept 

 myself. 



