WESTWARD HO ! 273 



contained more than three hundred messages, especi- 

 ally so when received from a Cunard steamer which 

 had called off Cape Eace to pick up despatches giving 

 the latest American exchange prices and news of the 

 Civil War w^hich raged between the Northern and 

 Confederate States. 



Of course, on the opening of the new. cable, in 1866, 

 messages from America gradually ceased. 



Eoche's Point postal telegraph office still renders 

 good service by announcing the arrival of mail- 

 steamers and the departure for Queenstown of tenders 

 conveying mails ; so rendering it practicable to make 

 the special arrangements for the conveyance of the 

 mails through Ireland almost perfect. 



But Eoche's Point is not the only signalling-place 

 for Transatlantic mail- steamers on the south coast of 

 Ireland. There is another, ninety or a hundred miles 

 to the south-west, which has just been the scene of 

 a new and interesting departure in submarine tele- 

 graphy. 



Twenty years ago I recollect sending by telegraph 

 a birthday congratulation to a youngster at Hamp- 

 stead, to the effect that the telegram was despatched 

 from an old Irish tower, perched on a desolate moun- 

 tain, known as Browhead, in the remote island or 

 peninsula of Crookhaven, about six hundred miles 

 from his home. The tower was not a luxuriously 

 furnished abode, a huge cast-iron ABC telegraph and 

 an empty patent mustard case being the chief items 

 of its equipment. 



18 



