290 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



appears invariably to get very mucli out of order about the 

 time of the equinox. As one who has sailed and sickened 

 with utmost consistency for many years, let me tender my 

 recipe as applied to the four hours' run across Channel. 

 Dine fairly well before starting ; eschew tobacco afterwards 

 (by which I mean, don't smoke) ; sit up till you get on 

 board ; but half-an-hour before reaching Holyhead, ad- 

 minister to yourself some light sandwiches and a pint of 

 the very driest ; then turn in between the sheets, in the 

 cabin previously secured by telegraph, and if, having 

 hunted all that forenoon, you do not now sleep in peaceful 

 oblivion of stormy wind and boisterous wave, why, you 

 must consult some other doctor. For the homeward 

 voyage, starting about one's ordinary dinner-time, one is 

 driven to play the bold sailor-boy on deck, and in all 

 probability to suffer very bitterly in the impersonation. 



There is something intensely refreshing and reviving, 

 though, in the aspect of the green fields of Kildare, as one 

 sails through them in the warm, soft morning (the word 

 " saft " doubtless referring to the effect of the rainfall upon 

 the ground on which we propose soon to be tumbling 

 about). A heavy drizzle overspreads the landscape, but is 

 powerless to shut out the gorgeous colouring in which the 

 foliage of Ireland stands resplendent while making its last 

 fight against the attack of autumn. Only a few cattle are 

 here and there scattered in the fields ; but these are 

 evidently fattening heartily on the rich, rank herbage that 

 offers such contrast to our own summer-dried and close- 

 cropped pasturage. Every field is level and smooth enough 

 for football, or, with very little assistance, even for cricket ; 

 while the banks, boasting a hedge-covering as ragged as an 

 Irish countryman's coat, seem each to cry out : " Simple 

 Saxon, come and jump me ! Sure ye needn't fear at all. 

 See, now, all the gaps I have left ye." You won't have to 

 travel all the way to Cork, gentle reader, in order to come 

 within the sphere of the Blarney stone's honeyed influence. 



Ballybrophy, Templemore, Thurles — thirty or forty 

 miles of country (aye, heavenly country) hereabouts with- 

 out a foxhound, I am told ! Is not this a solemn waste ? P'or 

 the good of Ireland, will not the Government of the future 



