GLIMPSES OF WESTEKN EUKOPE. 
141 
GLASGOW TO BELFAST. 
Have said good-bye to Glasgow and am dashing through the charming shire 
of Ayr, one of the most attractive portions of Scotland. Surface hilly; 
the highest of the mountains rising to 2000 feet above the level of the sea. 
Mines of iron, lead and antimony ; quarries of rare building stone ; valleys 
beautifully cultivated—the rich pastures animated by such Ayrshire cattle as 
would awaken thoughts of profitable darying in the mind of any Wisconsin 
farmer ; interesting relics of Druidical atid Roman life ; medaeival structures 
in decay ; the monuments of covenant martyrs, and thriving factories where 
are made quantities of fine linen, woolen and cotton goods, and the world- 
famed Paisely shawls ; Turnberry Castle (ancestral home of the family of 
Bruce) ; 
“ —Alloway’s auld haunted kirk, 
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry,” 
and where Tara O’Shanter had his midnight vision ; aye, and Ayr,— 
“AuldAyr, wham ne’er a town surpasses 
For honest men and bonny lasses,”— 
birth place of Robert Burns ;—all these, as a medley to the ear, come troop¬ 
ing to the sight of him who passes through this extreme southwestern corner 
of glorious old Scotland. ***** -x- 
From Androsan by steamer across the Irish sea to Belfast. Oh, these 
channels! A voyage across them doesn’t last long, but, otherwise it’sraoreto 
be dreaded than the ocean, w'ith its grand mountain swells. 
The old demon of sea sickness, from whose gripe it seems, I am never to 
escape, has again seized me, and reawakened inexpressible desires to abolish 
the whole digestive apparatus. 
At dawn, Belfast! I walk the plank and my feet, for the first time, touch 
the Emerald Isle !—land of rich resources made fruitless by internal dissen¬ 
sions, intestinal wars, and vain struggles with oppressive foreign powers for 
at least two thousand five hundred years; land whose history is emblazoned 
all over with the names of brilliant scholars, artists, poets, statesmen and 
warriors, and yet whose condition has been for all these dark centuries that 
of poor Ireland, demanding the svmpathy and commiseration of all generous 
people throughout the world ! If ray observations should betray unusual in¬ 
terest, what wonder? Is not every true American heart in perpetual bonds 
of sympathy with every other that beats for liberty and independence ? And, 
besides, are not the people who inhabit this island the fathers and mothers, 
brethren and sisters of some millions of our own countrymen, out of whose 
sinew and muscle have come much of the material wealth and power that 
now are the wonder of the world? ***** 
And this is Belfast, seat of linen manufacture. Strongly in contrast with 
the cities through wliich I have just been passing on the other side, and yet, 
after all, a very pleasant looking town of 100,000 inhabitants, with many fine 
buildings and quite a considerable number of factories, foundries, vitriol 
works, distilleries, flouring mills, rope and ship yards, etc. Built on the 
Lagan, an unimportant stream, except that its mouth makes a harbor, and 
was in fact the origin of Belfast, which else had probably never been. 
BELFAST TO DUBLIN. 
The way to Drogheda dies, at first, through a low and, just now, rather wet 
country, with a dark, rich, mucky soil, capable of producing large crops of 
grass, and, where properly drained, of potatoes and almost any of the crops 
grown in this latitude. Cultivation really quite good. The cattle —of which 
there are not a few by tlm way—are in good condition, and look as if des¬ 
tined for an English market; mostly of English breeds, with a sprinkling, 
now and then, of the singular-looking black Kerries. The farmers in this 
county (Down) are said to make a very good quality of butter and cheese and 
a great deal of it. i^wine also abound. * * * 
Now we strike i to the hills—some of them pretty high, too. Cattle and 
sheep—Southdowns, Leicesters, and what, at a distance, appear to be Lincolns 
