49 



Clip. It was colourless, and in flavour strong-ly resembled 

 Hollands gin, wliilst its strength was sufficient to blow* 

 the roof of your head off ! Let me here record the fact 

 that throughout the Avhole of my journeying I have met 

 only one man the worse for drink, and that was at Mount- 

 charles market. That illicit distillation exercises demoral- 

 ising influences upon the people wherever it is carried on can- 

 not for a moment be doubted, and not the least serioiis injury 

 it entails is the loss of grain used for the purpose, to say 

 nothing of the laziness, lawlessness, and misery which it 

 brings in its train. The priests and the police do all they 

 can to suppress this pernicious trade, but the character 

 of the country favours the manufacture of "potheen"; 

 for here you find nature in her wildest moods triumphant, 

 and man nowhere — -for rugged mountains, vast loughs, 

 deep gorges, bogs, and wild desolation, this coast of 

 Ireland is unparalleled. Btit I came here on a fishing 

 trip, and ought not, perhaps, to have gone scouring about 

 the country on cars, poking my nose into all the affairs 

 of the natives, hob-nobbing on mountain tops with ragged 

 and grimy rascals who defraud Her Majesty's revenue ; 

 but the trutli is that this paradise of the angler stands 

 greatlv in need of a fortnight's rain, and without it the 

 salmon will not rise to a fly. Sea-trout are to be had in 

 abundance, but they are a poor substitute for the king 

 of fish, and so it happens that I have packed my rods andi 

 gone wandering over the country, learning all I can of 

 the condition of its people. 



