44: THE IRISH PEOPLE. 



the women are very handsome, but badly attired (or 

 ' ill-arranged '), wear only a shirt, and a cloak which 

 covers them entirely, and a thick linen cloth which 

 they double closely about the head, tying- it in front. 

 They are very laborious and very domestic after 

 their fashion.* Were it not for these natives (sal- 

 vajes), who watched over us as well as they would 

 over their own persons, not one of us would have 

 survived. They eat but one meal in the twenty-four 

 hours, and that at night ; their usual food is oaten 

 bread and butter, their drink is sour milk, having 

 none other; they do not drink water, which is the 

 best of all ; on feast days they eat some half-cooked 

 flesh meat, without bread or salt, such being their 

 custom. In O'Can'sf town were very many hand- 

 some girls." 



Sometime after, a Bohemian Baron called at Dub- 

 lin Castle, and, among other things, said he had 

 visited O'Cane's castle and found that that chief- 

 tain's daughters " were very nymphs in beauty." 

 Moryson puts into the Baron's mouth a description 

 of the deshabille or undress of O'Cane and his 

 daughters utterly at variance with what Cuellar and 

 all other travellers say. The description is too vile 



*" Very industrious and good housewives in their way." - 

 Hume 

 t O'Cathdin. 



