TWO YEARS IN THE FAR WEST.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO," &c., &c.

No. I.

A wild locality-The Lodge of Aughniss-Life in the West-Fish and WhiskyMr. and Mrs. Canavan-The worst of luck-Migratory fishes-DhuhoomaMullet-catching The sweep-net-Extract from a Diary-Horse mackarelAdventure in Lough Foil.

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The energies

The curse of Ireland has been neglected advantages. of a land possessed of every element to ensure its prosperity, for centuries have been turned not to useful but mischievous account; and fertility of soil, insular facilities, a salubrious climate, a fine people-in short, all the matériel necessary to constitute and work out national wealth and happiness-have been paralyzed. The reverse of prosperity has been a consequence, and a land ordained by Heaven to be abundantly plentiful, has been, by turns, distracted, distressed, and faminescourged.

With political considerations we have no business, and her natural resources we shall generally pass unnoticed; but to one exuberant and neglected source of national wealth we would call the reader's attention, state a few practical facts, and leave him to theorize as he may please as to the extent of account to which Irish fisheries might be turned.

Not a tint of romance shall give colour to the piscatory experience of more than twenty years; and from facts alone it will be best estimated the abundancy of national advantage these neglected fisheries might produce.

Just twenty years ago, a truant disposition induced me to locate myself for the summer months in one of the wildest districts that Ireland can boast. My cabin-for literally the domicile deserved the title, if a thatched roof resting on walls not seven feet high can qualify a dwelling to take the name-was erected on a low peninsula abutting into the bay of Dhuhooma; two rivers there debouched their waters; both were salmon streams, and on the banks of the greater the lodge of Aughniss stood.

The selection of this abiding place was not made without exciting considerable curiosity touching the mysterious motives which could induce a man to remove his household gods from the pleasant town of Castlebar to a spot, in Connaught parlance, designated "the back o' God's speed!" Was it to economize? No-even my worst enemy would not impute that failing in Irish character to me.

To commence

a poteeine distillery? Not likely! There were already too many whisky establishments in Ballycroy, and an interloper would be certain to excite the jealousy of the trade, and meet but a sorry reception. Dr. H- -, however, ended this "vexata questio," and to the satisfaction of the Mall clique. He had-but he begged the communication should be

E E

considered strictly confidential-observed a change in ny manner, and at times a wildness of the eye; if I were not actually mad, I was some marches in advance towards it; as a physician, he had detected incipient symptoms-but conduct was even surer proof than diagnostics, for would any man of sound mind settle down in a place two-and-twenty miles from a post-office, and thirty from any medical practitioner who could produce a diploma? This reasoning was conclusive, and a general verdict was delivered, that although I had not exactly committed any overt act that would warrant a strait-waistcoat, yet the existence of" rats in my garret' was indisputable.

And yet I was not mad-or, if I were, there was a method in it. Jack Falstaff says that "every man knows best how to buckle his own belt," and I fancied that in the wilds of Erris I should find a solitary kind of happiness, that, to a mind and habits such as mine were, would be germane, albeit caviare to the multitude. I made the experiment, and the result proved that I was right.

The greater portion of two happy years I passed in Ballycroy; and were life young, and local circumstances as they then were, I would joyfully adopt the same resting-place again.

I shall briefly familiarize the reader with the head-quarters from which some of my future despatches shall be dated. I have already said that the next market-town was distant twenty miles, and when I remind him that these miles were Irish measure he may account it close upon thirty; such was the actual distance from the next post-office, and -thank God!-the nearest doctor was ten miles further off.

In architectural design, no builder of a cottage ornée would take Aughniss as a model. What its original extent might have been was merely conjectural; for it so happened that divers had been its occupants, and it had never had a tenant who did not, for fancy or convenience, add a room or two to the lodge. I was no exception. To one extremity I appended a sort of dairy, and to the other a barrack-room for such wanderers as, by prescriptive custom, dropped in without ceremony, and required hospitality as a right. A rude stable, a small kennel, and a store-house for curing salmon, completed the establishment. There was grass land for a couple of hacks and as many cows, and a garden that produced coarse vegetables. The scenery was an unvarying extent of bog, water, and mountain; when the tide was out we looked upon an estuary of dry sand, and when in, we were insulated for an hour or two, and our peninsula made an island.

A short detail of our mode of life will not be uninteresting to those who have never visited that corner of the earth beyond the Shannon, irreligiously associated with the place we never name, and been resident in the very wildest of its wild localities. On our own resources we were totally dependent; for there, if a gentleman drops in unexpectedly, you cannot send to the next butcher's shop for a leg of mutton, the messenger being obliged to cover some sixty English miles in his expedition back and forward. Our luxuries were obtained from Galway; and when we moved from winter quarters in March, a supply was laid in calculated to last until the middle of the next November. Of salted meats an adequate quantity for garrison expenditure was provided; of poultry, eggs, and butter, we had, within ourselves, what a doctor would write" quantum suf. ;" when mutton was required, a prime five-year-old was to be

had for ten shillings, a fat kid for half-a-crown, and half-a-dozen chickens for eighteen-pence; the cook had merely to step into the fishstore for a salmon when she wanted one, and a couple of boatmen would raise more oysters with the dredge in half an hour, than would meet the consumption of a week. Our fuel was dried peats and bog timber; and these, of domestic necessaries, were cheaper than all beside, with a solitary exception, and that was poteeine whisky. One article in houseeconomy was pre-eminently good; our bread was remarkable for its purity and whiteness, the flour being obtained from Galway, and the barm from one of the dozen illicit distilleries whose smoke you could see curling over the surface in every direction where there happened to be a rivulet.

hold

Of the quality of that staple article manufactured in Ballycroy, it will be enough to say that a poteeine-fancier would undertake a pilgrimage for a keg-full. For years after I left that land of Goshen I forswore all parliamentary productions-for more exquisite whisky never delectated the wearied traveller or tired grouse-shooter than Erris then produced, and at the price-incomprehensible to an English reader-viz., about four shillings a gallon. The recital of these statistics may seem tiresome, but they are true. There were, however, some local drawbacks; water must be carried from a distance; and, strange as the statement will appear, while the bay of Dhuhooma was full of deep-sea fish, and the estuary before my windows breaking now and then with millions of migratory ones, did I want a cod or haddock, I had to send a special messenger to Castlebar-inland distance, thirty miles-to obtain it.

I may mention here that the fish indigenous to the coast were chiefly cod, haddock, ling, skate, and every variety of flat-fish; and to the migratory, I have alluded en passant. Touching salmon (hybrids, so far as salt and fresh elements are concerned), we will more particularly pay our future attention; but in this article we shall confine ourselves to some remarks upon those supplies which nature bountifully pours upon the western coast of Ireland, while man as stupidly declines availing himself of the boon.

I

Of migratory sea fish, the herring is the most important one, and were the western coast fished properly, the average returns would be most remunerating. But there, God's bounty is thrown away, and herrings come, and herrings go, and their march is seldom much molested. disclaim politics, but I cannot pass by facts; the curse of the sea-coast population is their insensate attention to saints and holy days-a clear loss of twenty per cent. in time's calculations, were the annual amount of this nuisance correctly counted up.

When I was located in Ballycroy, there was a wretched clachan, as they call half-a-dozen cabins in the Highlands, across the neck of land where the lodge stood, and opening on the other estuary (Goolamore). The potatoes were in blossom-and the advent of the herrings is supposed to be generally a concurrent event. I walked across the bit of beach, and came to announce to the neighbouring villagers, that to the northward, the advanced guard of the herrings had appeared. Would it not be supposed in England that I should have proved a welcome visitor?

* The whisky which pays duty in Ireland is termed " Parliament."

but no; my 66

sternation.

drop in" brought with it nothing but sighs and con

"Blessed God!" exclaimed Antony Canavan, the proprietor of the chateau, as he jumped from the colleaugh* on which he had been "stretchin'.' "Had iver man sich bad luck as me! The herrings come, and divil a net ready, good or bad!" and he raised his eyes mournfully to the couples of the cabin, where half-a-dozen dark bundles were suspended; "not a net among the whole that you couldn't riddle bulldogs through!"

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And why the devil don't you down with them at once, and set all these idle (I forget the epithet) to mend them?"

"Plase yer honor, this is a holy-day," returned Mistress Canavan, " and divil a hand's turn-blessed be God !-I ivir did on a saint's day in my life, and, wid the Virgin's assistance, I won't be guilty of my duty now."

"And your piety-if piety consists in clattering over the fire or sleeping a blessed June day away-will cost you the herring fishery."

"Why there's time enough about the nets, yer honor. Poor Antony's boat met a mischance two months ago—the last big spring tide; and if the nets were ready, why the boat wouldn't swim."

"Is it possible?" I exclaimed, looking daggers at Mr. Canavan.

It's useless to deny it. We didn't pull the boat far enough up, and the high tide and gale o' wind that came on when we were asleep, knocked away four or five planks, and loosened her fastenings teetotally. Feaks! from what his honor says, I'll cut over to Newport in the mornin,' and try and make out a boat-wright; and, Judy dear, spread the nets out if the day is good, and set to them like a house afire!"

Next night, a northman, who had a yawl that would float, and half-adozen herring nets in decent order, brought in as many casts as paid his rent; while Mr. Canavan had started in quest of a carpenter, and his lady and the female portion of the family armed themselves with netting-needles, and proceeded to repair reticular damages which should have been undertaken six months before. We forget whether Diogenes succeeded in finding an honest man, even with the assistance of his lantern; but it is certain that Antony Canavan failed in his researches after a carpenter. The herrings came, and the herrings went; the boatwright was got at last, the nets were barked and mended, and on the morning that Antony was ready for a start, the fleet returned to the nooks and baylets in the line of coast, some without a scuddawn, and some with a hatful, which, like stragglers from a rear-guard, had been picked up accidentally. Mr. Canavan, to do him justice, was now made up for mischief; his boat was tight, his nets in tolerable order; he wanted, to be sure, half a dozen puckawns, but for these he could make a shift. Alas! the grand requisite of success now was wanting: the herrings had paid their visit and departed for the season, and a solitary scuddawn found in a salmon net by sheer accident, was looked upon as a curiosity:

*A" colleaugh" is a sort of recess to hold a bed.

A "cast" is six herrings, of which twenty go to make a hundred.
Buoys-made of dog or sheep skins.

I met Antony a month afterwards, accompanying an under-bailiff to the next pound, where his only cow was under distraint for rent. "Och! murder! Am I not to be pitied? I have always the worst of luck. The day after the scuddawns* quit the coast, wasn't I in beautiful order for the fishing? But luck's agin me always, yer honor; and af I had been bred a hatter, I'm sure that people would have been born without heads."

*

From some occult law of nature, herrings annually traverse half the globe, their numbers altogether exceeding possible computations; and if Mr. Anstey moved for a return, the reply to the motion would have to be given in cubic miles. The salmon, on the contrary, is a native, migrates for amusement, and returns to his or her birth-place with the same fidelity that a shepherd's colley seeks his owner's sheeliene.+ Other piscatory visitors make a periodical call: mackarel and grey gurnet fill the Irish channels; and in summer and autumn every nook and bay on the western coast to which the tide has access is filled at times by mullet in small detachments, and horse-mackarel in masses which will absolutely tax belief. By the latter, I have seen a square mile of sea on the surface of Clew Bay agitated in a dead calm from the enormous influx of these foreign visitors; while, rushing against the cliffs, or, as it would appear, without an object running themselves upon the sands, thousands of these silly fish are secured by boys and women.

I have seen the horse-mackarel exposed for sale in London; a long snout, and a leaner and longer body, distinguish it from the more edible and handsomer species. I have been told-for I religiously eschewed them that through a horse-mackarel you can obtain introduction to cholera; and from report of health on the western coast of Ireland after extensive visitation of these fish, I believe that they are exceedingly dangerous.

The grey mullet runs into every bay and estuary in small divisions, enters with the tide, and with the ebb recedes to deep water. It has all the elegance of shape and action of the salmon; and the same physical power I have seen the latter exert to overcome a weir, I have witnessed in the mullet when essaying to free himself from captivity.

I mentioned in this rambling sketch that from a bay abounding in sea-fish I was obliged to send to the interior to procure a cod when I required it; salmon, in its season, I had abundantly; and the trout tribe were generally to be had from the river by a projection of the castingline. Still, soup for every meal, as Mirable says, is objectionable. I knew Dhuhooma Bay was amply stocked, and I determined to practically ascertain whether its piscatorial resources could not be made available for household purposes.

A small sweep-net was easily constructed, and, when the weather permitted, I draughted every little creek within a mile or two, and however small the return in size might be, in number it was multitudinous; codlings, white and red, sea-trout, coal fish, dabs and flounders, with now and then a sole, and "few and far between" a salmon or a turbot. Encouraged by success, I ordered a more extensive sweep-net, and never

*"Scuddawn"-Anglice, a herring. + "Sheeliene"-a shepherd's hut.