324

Extravagant Charges at Inns.

gulated by our appearance, and not by what in fairness ought to be demanded. Strangers are obliged to submit to this mode of paying, but those of the neighbourhood know how to meet this species of extortion. Adieu!-we must start early.

J. C. C.

1

LETTER XXVII.

Ballinrobe, Sept. 5, 1813.

THE want of guide-posts is a serious incon

venience to travellers: such we have found it to be on various occasions. It was our intention to have gone first to Newport, but by mistaking, the road we found ourselves at Westport.

The soil during the first eight miles from Castlebar is almost entirely that of bog. Croagh Patrick with its elevated summit, engrosses the principal attention, and forms the most interesting part of the prospect. We could not help remarking the extremity of poverty surrounding the cabins. In various instances we beheld children coming out of their huts quite naked, and apparently scarcely sensible of cold, though at an early hour in the morning one child, about eight years old, stood for nearly ten minutes in our view, without showing any indication of uneasiness from its want of clothes. At the door of one of these wretched habitations was a young woman clean

326 Fiorin called Bottom Grass by the Irish.

式

ing the head of an aged person with her nails. We had observed the same operation performing on children; the like practice was noticed by Moryson, who says, "And let no man wonder that they were lowsie, for never any barbarous people were found in all kinds more slovenly than they are. Nothing is more common among them, than for the men to lie on the women's laps on green hills, till they kill their lice with great nimbleness." What can convey a more loathsome yet correct idea of the wretchedness" then endured by these poor people?

In several of the meadows we observed a great proportion of fiorin: whilst we were examining one of them a respectably dressed man came up, of whom we inquired if the fiorin was naturally there, or had been introduced by cultivation. He did not appear to be at all acquainted with the name of the grass. On showing him a specimen, he said it was known by the name of bottom grass, and was the spontaneous production of the bogs.

We had a long acclivity to ascend before we reached Westport. From the summit of the hill a most commanding view is obtained of the town, the bay, and the surrounding mountain scenery. The late Marquis of Sligo, who was

My Town of Westport.

327

the proprietor of an immense tract of indifferent land, stood forward as a very prominent character in the improvement of the country, and as an able agriculturist. :

The plan of the town of Westport is regular, and it contains many handsome houses. The inn is on a scale suited to the most frequented place in the island, exhibiting great liberality on the part of the proprietor.

The Marquis of Sligo's residence is within a short distance of the town, and occupies the centre of a small valley between two high banks, within a few hundred yards of the sea. The house possesses little of any particular character to attract attention: the hanging woods are certainly very fine; but in a country presenting so many natural beauties, the situation did not appear to me as happily chosen. The soil about it is in part reclaimed bog, and has been made productive at a great expense; it affords however another proof of what may be done.

The farm-yard is the most superb and exten, sive establishment I ever beheld-replete with all kinds of machinery to give facility to the labors and promote the interests of husbandry, Mr. Morley, the bailiff, appears to be a very

328 Marquis of Sligo's Farming Establishment,

intelligent person, and has about ten acres of the Swedish and common turnips under tolerably good cultivation; but the present state of the farm proclaims its success to be only a secondary consideration, and no longer the object of patriotic pride and solicitude in the proprietor. Wherever this is the case, and that farming, under the immediate direction of a nobleman or gentleman, is not made a business of the first importance in the estimation of the operative parties, neither the time nor the expense bestowed on it will bring it to that perfection it ought to attain, or ensure those profitable returns, which, as a pattern of husbandry for the imitation of the surrounding estates, ought to be the principal inducement on the commencement of the undertaking.

The late Marquis seemed to have taken great pleasure in planting, and to have expended much of his noble fortune in the embellishment of his place and improvements in the town, to which his labors and expense seem to have been exclusively confined; there being no existing evidence that he entertained by his experiments any liberal plan for promoting a general improved system of cultivation in the country, or even in that of his own immense territory, which uniformly presents the reverse of