Letters from West Ireland, XI, (From our Special
Correspondent)
The Times London, September 15, 1884
Cong, Mayo, Sept. 8
Connemara
scenery can never have been in greater beauty than on the night when I drove
back from Kylemore to Leenane. The full moon dimmed the twinkle of the
stars…each summit stood clear as at noonday; and the black shadows of the
opposite mountains fell across the silvery locks. So that it was little of a
surprise…when I looked out next morning on a thick, gray drizzle. Such sharp transitions
in the weather are the rule rather than the exception here. The rain came down
heavier and more heavily; and towards afternoon it was tumbling in torrents… I
ordered round the car that was to take me to Cong.
The heavy wet
of Connaught, even when you have it in excess, is unlike any I have met with
elsewhere… Driving towards Lough Corrib, the whole country was surging,
foaming, and murmuring with the course of the river Maam through the bogs,
always sweeping in a brown torrent round the corners and often flooding the
intervening _____. It was fed from the hills by a thousand little tributaries,
falling from shelf to shelf in cascades… The very ditches by the roadside had
become lively brooks, running along under a green fringe of ferns and
flowerless foxgloves.
After a short,
sharp climb from Leenane, we have crossed the lofty watershed, and the Maam now
helps to drain the vast watery basin of Lough Corrib. Sheep and cattle that
have been driven down from the high grazings are standing huddled together in
the valley bottom in piteous plight, often bogged half way up to the hocks in
swamp. They have been collected for the fair on next Monday at Leenane, and in
this part of the valley are two or three large hill farmers, one of them owning
nearly 250 cattle. Cattle [prices] have fallen, as well as the fleeces of the
sheep; but the sheep themselves fetch fair prices…
