IRISH INSECT-HUNTF.n. 161 



remarkably bold feature in the scenery for many miles round. 

 However, we were satisfied with the close view we had of it 

 here, not thinking it would afford us any further novelty, either 

 in itself or the character of its inhabitants, different from the 

 main land. While we were discussing the tea and eggs, in the 

 little back room, unfloored, but not otherwise uncomfortable, our 

 landlord seemed to be driving a pretty good trade in the general 

 line in the shop. After due inquiry we determined to make for 

 Clifden that day. This journey was to be performed on foot, 

 for no longer was even an Irish car of any practicable service. 

 The distance, from the best information we could obtain, — and 

 the landlord and his family, and the neighbours who had 

 gathered round, seemed most anxious to afford all in their 

 power, — we calculated to be about twenty (Irish) miles ; but 

 none of them had ever been there, and by their account there 

 was no kind of accommodation to be met with, not even a 

 potato to be begged or bought on the way. This was not 

 strictly correct. We finally engaged the man whom we had 

 before picked up, and who reckoned he knew the mountains 

 thoroughly, as guide and burden-bearer. We started in high 

 spirits, our landlord accompanying us some little way, and 

 parted with the warm Irish blessing of " God send you safe 

 home ! " 



Our guide was a Joyce, and a John Joyce too, but not 

 " the Joyce" of Inglis. He hailed a little ragged boy at some 

 distance, and charging him with a message that he would be 

 back "after to-morrow," dispatched him to his cabin home far 

 up among the hills, to communicate the intelligence of his long 

 and hazardous undertaking, or — his luck. Our course struck 

 at once into a defile, in the heart of the most bare and solitary 

 mountains, winding behind the Reek ; bog on each side to the 

 base of their enormous ridges, and totally uninhabited. Not a 

 living thing, bird or even insect, was to be seen. One lone 

 woman, bare-foot, bare-head, and wrapped in an ancient cloak, 

 was all we met with, and she rather added to the strange and in- 

 describable solitude. She evidently possessed a superior mind, 

 or the wrecks of one. Her figure was gaunt, but far above 

 the common, and with her wild eye, and long hair floating in 

 the wind, she was as near the personification of a weird sister, 

 as can well be conceived. There was something mysterious 

 about her history. Our guide, who knew her well, said she 



NO. II. VOL. V. Y 



