COCK-SHOOTING IN ACHIL. 347 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



The Colonel has left us, and we lose in him the best 

 and safest of friends — a true buon camarado. With 

 spirits of youthful buoyancy, a temper unsoured by time, 

 and indifferent to worldly annoyances, years have only 

 mellowed his companionable qualities, while they added 

 deeply to his anecdote and information. Few men of 

 a certain age succeed in retaining their places as first 

 favourites with others some quarter of a Century their 

 juniors : but the Colonel is an exception • we shall feel a 

 blank in our society ; and in this gay and careless spirit 

 lose a dear companion, who seemed to put time at 

 defiance, and forbade gout itself to interrupt his comfort, 

 or '* mar his tranquillity " 



The last two days have been dry, the wind is favourable, 

 a white frost has been visible this morning, and we are 

 about to pay our parting visit to Achil. We have again 

 sent to our ancient entertainers, the Water Guards, to 

 beg a shelter tor the night ; for the days have so sensibly 

 shortened, that we shall have enough to do to reach 

 Dugurth at nightfall 



" Merrily, merrily bounds the bark," and an hour 

 landed us at the Ridge Point. Our establishment is 

 en a minor scale to what we sported on our first descent ; 

 we have only some two or three hangers-on, and have 

 brought but two brace of orderly and antiquated setters. 



I have seen much of snipe-shooting in many parts of 

 Ireland, but I could not have imagined that the number 

 of these exquisite birds could be found within the same 

 space, that one particular marsh which bounds the rabbit- 



