156 BAD ROADS. 



passage across a bog, provided it be but fetlock deep, are 

 considered by the inhabitants of this wild peninsula to be ex- 

 cellent horse ways. 



That accidents do not more frequently occur is marvellous. 

 But the horse is born in the wilderness, and if there be a 

 practicable path, he appears to know it by intuition. Hence, 

 the rider traverses with impunity a morass in which Colonel 

 Thornton would have been 'ingulfed, and skirts a dizzy preci- 

 pice, with no more apprehension than a cockney wayfaring 

 upon a turnpike trust. " Use lessens marvel/' quoth Sir 

 Walter Scott, and I, who formerly witnessed the accoutre- 

 ment of these Calmuck-looking coursers, with a lively antici- 

 pation of broken bones, now stumble through a defile, or cross 

 a bog, with all the indifference of a native. 



Having despatched the dogs and keeper, we arranged our 

 beat, and started after breakfast. The road by which we 

 reached our shooting-ground, is the sole means by which this, 

 our terra incognita, is connected with the rest of Christendom. 

 It is rough and dangerous in the extreme, and impracticable to 

 every quadruped but the ponies of the country. In place of 

 mile-stones, which mark ^better frequented roads, heaps of 

 irregularly-sized pebbles meet the eye, and a stranger will be 

 at a loss to assign their uses. They are melancholy memorials 

 of uncivilized society, and either mark the scene of murder, or 

 the place where a corpse has been rested in the progress of a 

 funeral. These tumuli are numerous and many a wild and 

 fearful record of former violence is associated with them. The 

 greater portion of these cairns record loss of life, consequent 

 upon drunkenness ; and the stone, at present, appears as fatal 

 as the middoge* in former days. 



* This weapon, I believe, was almost confined to the west of Ireland, 

 and at this time is rarely met with. Yet some centuries back, it was as 

 constantly borne by the Milesians, as the dirk in the Highlands, and the 

 stiletto in Italy. All the legendary tales of blood usually employ it as the 

 means of violence ; and old Antony says, that in his youth the old people 

 shuddered when they named it. I never saw but one ; it was a broad- 

 bladed dagger, about fifteen inches long, of clumsy workmanship, and 

 hafted with a piece of deer's horn. From the formidable figure the 

 middoge cuts in ancient chronicles, the temper of the blade was supposed 

 to be superior to any weapon forged in these degenerate days ; and I 

 heard an old man assert that he had seen one, which, when held up and 

 let fall perpendicularly but a few feet, would pierce through three half- 

 crown pieces Credat Judceus ! This interesting and valuable implement, 



