132 



WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



The drift timber from the Atlantic gives them an abun- 

 dant supply for the building and repairs of boats and 

 houses ; and immense quantities of sea-fowl feathers 

 are annually collected upon the Black Rock, which is 

 contiguous to Inniskea. The island affords excellent 

 pasturage for sheep ; and thus timber, feathers, and 

 wool enable the inhabitants to have domestic comforts 

 in abundance. In winter, the take of cod, hake, and ling 

 is inexhaustible ; peats are excellent and plenty, and 

 food and fuel are consequently never scarce in Inniskea. 



These are, doubtless, great advantages over the 

 interior districts, but they are barely necessary to com- 

 pensate the other local inconveniences. Throughout 

 the greater portion of the winter all communication 

 with the mainland is interrupted. The sick must die 

 without relief, and the sinner pass to his account without 

 the consolations of religion. Should anything beyond 

 the produce of the island be requisite in the stormy 

 months, it must be procured with imminent danger ; 

 and constant loss of life and property forms the unhappy 

 theme of the tales and traditions of this insulated people. 



A calm and misty twilight had fallen on Slieve More, 

 and abridged the almost boundless range of ocean over 

 which the eye passed when we first landed. At a little dis- 

 tance the village girls were milking, carolling those melan- 

 choly ditties to which the Irish are so partial. I strolled 

 among the rocks, and chose the narrow path, which the 

 full tide left between its margin and the cliffs. The moon 

 was rising now in exquisite beauty — the water was 

 rippling to the rocks — one long and wavy line of molten 

 silver undulated across the surface of the sea — and there 

 were wild cliffs and bolder headlands in glorious relief. 

 No scene on earth could be more peaceful or romantic. 



