We Passed Through A Well-Cultivated Country, Interspersed With
Towns Which Had An Appearance Of Activity And Thrift.
The dwellings of the
cottagers looked more comfortable than those of the same class in
Scotland, and we were struck with the good looks of the people, men and
women, whom we passed in great numbers going to their work.
At length,
having traversed the county of Down, we entered Lowth, when an immediate
change was visible. We were among wretched and dirty hovels,
squalid-looking men and women, and ragged children - the stature of the
people seemed dwarfed by the poverty in which they have so long lived, and
the jet-black hair and broad faces which I saw around me, instead of the
light hair and oval countenances so general a few miles back, showed me
that I was among the pure Celtic race.
Shortly after entering the county of Lowth, and close on the confines of
Armagh, perhaps partly within it, we traversed, near the village of
Jonesborough, a valley full of the habitations of peat-diggers. Its aspect
was most remarkable, the barren hills that inclose it were dark with heath
and gorse and with ledges of brown rock, and their lower declivities, as
well as the level of the valley, black with peat, which had been cut from
the ground and laid in rows. The men were at work with spades cutting it
from the soil, and the women were pressing the water from the portions
thus separated, and exposing it to the air to dry. Their dwellings were of
the most wretched kind, low windowless hovels, no higher than the heaps of
peat, with swarms of dirty children around them. It is the property of
peat earth to absorb a large quantity of water, and to part with it
slowly. The springs, therefore, in a region abounding with peat make no
brooks; the water passes into the spongy soil and remains there, forming
morasses even on the slopes of the hills.
As we passed out of this black valley we entered a kind of glen, and the
guard, a man in a laced hat and scarlet coat, pointed to the left, and
said, "There is a pretty place." It was a beautiful park along a
hill-side, groves and lawns, a broad domain, jealously inclosed by a thick
and high wall, beyond which we had, through the trees, a glimpse of a
stately mansion. Our guard was a genuine Irishman, strongly resembling the
late actor Power in physiognomy, with the very brogue which Power
sometimes gave to his personages. He was a man of pithy speech,
communicative, and acquainted apparently with every body, of every class,
whom we passed on the road. Besides him we had for fellow-passengers three
very intelligent Irishmen, on their way to Dublin. One of them was a tall,
handsome gentleman, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and a rich South-Irish
brogue. He was fond of his joke, but next to him sat a graver personage,
in spectacles, equally tall, with fair hair and light-blue eyes, speaking
with a decided Scotch accent.
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