GLIMPSES OF WESTERN EUROPE. 
143 
DUBLIN TO CORK. 
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The way through the county of Kildare is over a country, now flat 
and boggy, now undulating and a little hilly. Soil abounding in clay and 
evidently fertile. Here and there a flouring mill, woolen or cotton factory 
in the principal towns by the way. With two railroads and canals, Kildare 
is pretty well provided for in a commercial way. Here we have the Carragh 
of Kildare—a broad open plain of some 6,000 acres, with one of the best 
race courses in the kingdom. * * * Queen’s county. 
At first, more undulating. Slieve Bloom mountains visible at the northwest. 
Mines of iron and copper and anthracite coal. * * * 
Ah, here are the regular bogs of Irish peat—broad in extent, with quantities 
of the fuel stacked up to dry, and hundreds of hands cutting and throwing 
it out of its deep beds. ****** 
Kilkenney county. Level, in the main, with hills now and then, upon some 
of which are relics of the Pagan era, in the form of piles of stone, crom¬ 
lechs and cairnes. Some mines of anthracite coal and occasionally quarries 
of a handsome black marble. ***** 
Tipperary county. Undulating, with rich, fertile soil, producing excellent 
crops of cereals and grass. Great numbers of cattle. By the way, a fellow 
traveler tells me the farmers of this section including, also, portions of Cork 
county, make and export large quantities of excellent butter. Evidences of 
mines of copper, lead and coal, and quarries of slate, which seem to be pret¬ 
ty extensively worked. ****** 
At last, “Cork !” is the cry, and I hurry out to get a view of this somewhat 
noted town, and the last of any magnitude that I shall behold, for this time, 
at least, on the Old World side of the great deep. 
The original name—the Irish—of Cork was Carcagh, the signification of 
which is swamp. City, low and flat, standing upon an island, though backed 
by hills. Wall, now pretty well dembolished; built by the Danes in the 9th cen¬ 
tury. Some portions of the city look very well, but the greater part is old 
and weather-worn, without much in the way of public buildings to relieve 
the eye. Population, about 80,000, large numbers of whom have the appear¬ 
ance of needing to emigrate to America at the earliest day practicable. Old 
Market—where old clothes, boots and shoes, articles of household use, half 
spoiled provisions, and fifty thousand indescribable andunnamable old traps, 
in every stage of dilapidation, are put upon sale to the poor, ragged half- 
starved wretches who stand about, by the scores and [hundreds, higgling fora 
trade, looking, first at their few greasy coppers, and then wistfully at the 
coveted treasures on sale—presents one of the most heart-sickening spectacles 
I have witnessed in Europe. 
Among the public builingsare four monasteries, and two nunneries, a house 
of correction, a female penetentiary. Queen’s College, the Cork Library, Me¬ 
chanics Institute, and the Royal Cork Institute, established in 180V, in the in¬ 
terest of agriculture. There are also several schools of an inferior grade, 
and a n.mber of horticultural and agricultural societies. Considerable com¬ 
merce ; imports, chiefly timber; exports, agricultural. It so happens that 
just at this date there is a county agricultural exhibition in blast, to which I 
am cordially invited * * * _a. considerable affair, comparing favorably 
with our own county fairs. Some fine stock and creditable exhibitions of field 
and garden products. Premiums larger than are usually paid at our fairs. 
From the heights of Queenstown, I look out upon the grand old Atlantic. 
The horrors of the former voyage are all forgotten in the growing desire to 
strike hands with friends from whom I seem to have been separated for years, 
and now' I even long to commit myself to the billows. This, the lower har¬ 
bor, is a magnificent one—three miles long and about two miles wide, and so 
completely shut in by land that shipping is entirely secure. Entrance chan¬ 
nel two miles long and one mile wide, guarded by two forts that efiectually 
control it. ' 
The war in America appears to have no effect to retard the exodus of the poor 
people of Ireland. Every week hundreds go out in quest of better fortunes, 
willing to hazard even the perils of war, or anything else, than longer endure 
the wretchedness that comes of a poverty and a tyranny from which there 
