THE JOURNEY TO INDIA. 3 



of the picturesque north coast of Ireland, and to my mind it really 

 is, as the local guides assure the visitor again and again, " wan uv 

 the foremust sights uv the known wurruld." After securing and 

 shipping five large columns, I went to Belfast, and from thence 

 about twenty miles farther, to the head of Loch Neagh, where I 

 skeletonized four old donkeys, and very nearly had my scalp taken 

 by a mob of wild L'ishmen, who came at me with long-handled 

 spades. They objected to the proceedings on the ground that 

 the " pore bastes had been jist murthered fur me, so they had," 

 and in the tenderness of their hearts they were spoiling for an ex- 

 cuse to pound me and my two butcher boys to a jelly. I was boy- 

 cotted for an entire day in a cabin, by a mob of nearly a hundred 

 men, women, females, and children, who like 



" A legion of foul fiends 

 Environed me, and howl'd in mine ears," 



while I exercised all the arts of diplomacy I knew to keep the 

 crowd on a peace footing until the arrival of British reinforcements 

 from a police station. I wish I could narrate the whole episode, to 

 show what the festive Home Kuler is capable of on his native bog ; 

 but it is too long a story, and a rehearsal of what I endured from 

 those howling bog-trotters would make me lose my temper en- 

 tirely. I am happy to say I came off with whole bones — mine, I 

 mean, not the donkeys' — for they were a complete wreck — after an^ 

 adventure ten times more dangerous than any I experienced with 

 the head-hunters of Borneo, or any other East Indian natives. 



After joining Professor Wai'd at Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, 

 where we visited the collections of the Challenger expedition, or 

 as much of them as were stored at No. 1 Park Place. Aside 

 from the marine invertebrates, the amount collected seems small 

 almost to insignificance, in comparison with the cost, the equip- 

 ment and personnel of the expedition, and the distance it traversed.; 

 The higher forms of animal life received but scant attention, and 

 the results obtained are interesting to a few scientific speciaUsts 

 only. Aside from the deep-sea sounding and dredging, I, for one, 

 am puzzled to know how such an expedition could go so far and 

 accompHsh so Httle. The collections of vertebrates would be no 

 great credit, even if shown as the work of a private individual, to. 

 say nothing of such an expedition sent out by a great nation. • i 



At Manchester we visited the Owens College Museum, whence I 

 went on to Sheffield and had made to order, after my own patterns, 



