10 MOUNT BELLE W — TUAM. 



cap, arms, and trousers, attracted our notice. To an 

 inquiry from a gentleman on the car, he replied that he 

 was the bailiff of a landed proprietor, who employed 

 also five or six others, at 13s. a-week during harvest; 

 and that their business was to prevent the tenants 

 carrying off their crops, when cut, to evade payment of 

 rent. When asked if, on such a duty, he was not 

 afraid of being shot, he told us, with a knowing look, 

 that there was no fear of that, for their employer had 

 taken care to select them as being the worst characters 

 in the population. Whether this was a joke or not, it 

 certainly is a queer relation in which the landlord and 

 his tenants stand, with such intermediate agents as 

 these. 



At Mount Bellew, the road is very picturesque ; the 

 village, with a finely wooded stream issuing from the 

 demesne in which the house and lawns are seen through 

 the trees ; the rich hedge-rows, which are here inter- 

 mingled with ivy and wild-flowers, and remind one of 

 the luxuriance of a Devonshire lane ; all contribute 

 to form a very pleasing picture. 



From this to Tuam the land is light, but some of it 

 good sheep pasture. Many people were busy at hay- 

 making. In the immediate neighbourhood of the town 

 of Tuam, on the demesne of the bishop, the land 

 was well farmed ; fine fields of Swedish turnips and 

 clover indicating superior management. The Roman 

 Catholic cathedral forms a prominent object. It was 

 market-day, and the streets densely crowded by men 

 and women, horses and carts, sacks of corn and other 

 agricultural produce exposed for sale. After changing 



