14 ANDY COTTER. 



a consultation as to the next route is called. 

 " 'Tis no good tryin' Rhein after the wet last 

 night," Mr. Cotter opines ; " Knocknagerah is 

 perhaps too far, but Murphy's Bog is just the 

 place for us." 



Monarrogue is, God knows, as Andy Cotter 

 fervently remarked, "a dissholute (desolate) 

 bit o' land ;" but how is Murphy's Bog to be 

 described ? The very mountains that encom- 

 pass Murphy's Bog are perpetually in tears. A 

 brook sighs through the centre of it, gurgling 

 the most melancholy water-music. Murphy's 

 Bog groans of its own motion at times, and 

 the placing of your foot on the morass is a 

 signal for a lugubrious gamut of soughs and 

 murmurs which warn you not to take liberties 

 with a district that is reported to have swal- 

 lowed in a single gulp two infantry officers who 

 without guides came after snipe to the spot. 

 Their ghosts are said to haunt the place at 

 night, their guns explode without noise, and 

 leave a stronger smell of sulphur after the per- 

 formance than is noticeable in the ammunition 

 made by Pigou, or Curtis and Harvey. As 

 the unfortunate gentlemen were Protestants, 



