286 FEMININE EMPLOYMENTS. 



saved and the hero of the bridge of Ballyveeny will cross 

 the equator at the public expense. 



To-morrow, wind and weather permitting, the commander 

 takes his departure, and to-night will consequently be a high 

 and solemn festival. Would it were over ! I cannot, dare not, 

 offer an excuse for cavilling at bumpers, even were they 

 " fathoms deep ;" and all the consolation that an aching head 

 will claim to-morrow, will be a saw from old John about "the 

 dog that bit me," and the merciless badinage of that black- 

 eyed coquette who embodies all that Moore idealized in 

 sketching his Nora Crina. 



How soft the evening twilight falls on the waters of the 

 estuary ! the tide kisses the very verge of the greensward, and 

 looks so treacherously calm, as if its storms were for ever 

 ended. Boat after boat hurries down the inlet to shoot their 

 herring-nets for the night ; and many an ancient ditty, or 

 ruder tale, will while away the time till morning. Occa- 

 sionally a struggle between two rival barks ensues and I 

 remark, the contest invariably takes place before the windows 

 of the Lodge. One very singular one amused me much. A 

 boat rowed by four women challenged, and actually out- 

 pulled another, though propelled by a similar number of the 

 coarser sex. 



Indeed, the occupations of the ladies of Ballycroy are not 

 essentially feminine : the roughest and most dangerous em- 

 ployments they share in common with the men. A Mahratta 

 woman, they told me in India, regularly shampoos her hus- 

 band's horse. Were I of the fair sex, I would rather operate 

 on a quadruped than row a fishing-boat by the day, and cut 

 sea-weed up to the waist in water, with the expectation of 

 being swept from my precarious footing by the first moun- 

 tainous surge. 



