THRESHING-FLOOR ON PUBLIC ROAD. 33 



capital nor great skill to conduct it ; so that, where 

 desirable, this manufacture might be very easily ex- 

 tended. 



In driving along the road, we occasionally disturbed 

 the labours of the husbandmen threshing out their crops. 

 They choose a dry smooth part of the public road for a 

 threshing-floor, and winnow the corn by riddling it 

 slowly in a breeze of wind. We drove over the top of 

 several heaps of half-threshed corn in the middle of the 

 road, the threshers suspending their labours till we 

 passed. 



From Newport to Westport the country is of an un- 

 dulating character, the road skirting the heads of the 

 numerous inlets of the sea, though, from the peculiar 

 character of the coast already mentioned, a glimpse of 

 the sea is scarcely to be got the whole way. The dis- 

 tance by road is six miles ; following the coast-line, 

 along every bay, it is not less than sixty. The land 

 generally is under wretched management, though the 

 farm of Mr Bridges, a tenant of Sir Richard O'Don- 

 nell, is a striking exception. The neat fences, good 

 roads, and comfortable residence, with the trimly 

 thatched stacks, here led me to make some inquiry about 

 the tenant ; and I learned that his father had been an 

 English settler, and that he himself had been educated 

 in England. 



Westport is a very prettily situated seaport town, 

 also on Clew Bay : the houses are handsome and well 

 built ; and nestled as it is in a hollow, with a row of trees 

 overhanging the stream which intersects it, and in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the fine demesne of West- 



