Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-20

his grewsome ''Meg Merrilles." Come upon these women suddenly in their huts if you wish to meet ever fercer beldRme than Scott's magic pen could linn. Above six feet in height, broad and strong as their bur- ly mates, with legs corded like mans and bare to the knees; with arms long, crooked and feshless as wood; with flat, hairy breasts often barred from the neck to the waist and tanned by salt sun and wind to ths color of the mottled alder bark; with wide jaws, half toothless mouths, sunken cheeks, eyes blue black and flashing from deep, yellow sockets, and brows bushy and ragged with bristling hairs; with narrow, creased foreheads and great, wide saffron colored ears set straight out from behind like dirty Owing and wing" sails; and their square heads crowned by once black hair, faded into snuff brown like an ill kept animals, which is matted and knotted upon the shoulders, and frequently to the waist;-and you have but the faintest picture of this half animal who subsists upon kelp, dulse, black oat cake and half raw fish that the buyers, who come to the beaches in their carts from Londonderry, re- fuse as even unworthy of sale to mendicant and crouching man-beast of the town.
 And the children of these!
 They drag out the same horrible lives; help make the British navy; turn traitor to the brood of half pirates behind, becoming
 the most remorseless of coast guard or noun tain poteen hunting officers; stow themselves away, at the risk of their lives in the coal bunkers of the great steamers bound for America; or turn outlaw and man hater in their own country or in other lands. And yet how the old blood occasionally blossoms through this Hmitless degradation. A daughter of just such an one as have pie tured was the most perfect type of wild and simple human beauty I ever beheld. Bare legged and bare breasted as her mother; brown hazlenut; ignorantly innocent of
 fear; for four copper coins she rowed me | across Lough Swilly to where her fathers work lay at mending the seines like an Anna zonian of, war's-man; while I sat speech less, contemplating her marvellous beauty and majestic proportions; hating myself bes l cause I was not altogether an artist; and | wondering in all reverence why God, or Gods nineteenth century civilization, could not wait upon the African missions for ht- | tie and reach to and succor such as these.
 Lough Swilly herring fishing differs so greatly from that of our own northeast coast | that brief description may be of interest. With us the Quoddy boat is invariably used
 in every manner of service; and at Passport | fish are taken in just three ways: By the seine, in daylight at shore edges, or above | shallows where the tide runs swiftly and fla vorably; in the weirs, built when the tide is out, of palisaded, interwoven poles in the 1 form of printers mark of interrogation,
 into the lobe of which the herring run, 1 where they are gathered with nets; and by
 ''driving" at night, when torch attracts the 1 shoals to the side of swiftly rowed boat,
 and the fish are literally dipped into it with | 6 fscoop net" bushel or more at . sweep. Here the fishermen use the "Drunthan, :" originally Scotch boat, sharp pointed fore and aft, and smack rigged for single sail But fishing is always done here by night, and never in the same manner on the Quoddy. It is gill netting fishing exclusive ly. The seines, which have three-fourth inch mesh, are each about one hundred feet fank TrT5l OE 4Hadn spliced, foated with wooden "bobs," and
 sunk straight with leaden sinkers, form what is called stand" With this the boat,
 propelled by crew of four men, is rowed to
 the 'tgrounds," ;" which are constantly being
 changed agreeably to weather wise or super
 stitious fancy; the seine is 'fpayed out" over
 the side, and the men idly doze or smoke
 their pipes of bitter black twist and peat,
 the boat and seine meanwhile floating at
 will The seine is "boarded" over the side
 and "shook out" that ia the fish are shaken
 and picked off into the boat three or four
 times between night fall and morning. The
 result is simply one of luck, and depends
 entirely uEon how many herring have run
 their heads into the meshes of the net At daylight the fishers repair to the beaches at
 Inch, where buyers come with carts from Derry. About half penny apiece Is paid
 for the 'tcatches," which under this system 1 are at all times most meager. The fish are
 shipped fresh to Belfast and Dublin; and sometimes the choicest of the herring find
 their way to Liverpool and London. There are about fifty crews on these waters; per- haps three hundred men are engaged in the l work: and fully two thousand souls live and
 starve on herring fishing in the Lough Swil-
 ly.
 But few miles north of Buncrana on the
 shores of the Lough is the dainty hamlet of
 Fahan. Most travellers would pass it with
 but pleasant reflection upon it's nestling
 beauty Yet there hoYers about the little
 spot perhaps the deepest and most attractive
 ecclesiastic and historic traditionary interest to be found in the north of Ireland. The
 Abby of St. Mura was here founded in the
 early part of the seventh century; the region
 roundabout was, nearly three hundred years
 earlier, a favorite haunt of St. Patrick him.
 self; St. Mura's holy well is still seen; and
 for eleven centuries foot sore pilgrims have
 cone hither for healing through the efficacy
 of prayer Our so called faith cure'' Is not
 young. More remarkable than all, an nn-
 fiinching Protestant, Dr.-Ws!ber Bernard, of
 Londonderry, a11e noted antiqaary whose
 single handed labors restored the Grianan of
 Aileach, here set a noble marble cross to
 mark the shrine for weary Catholic wander
 CTS. do not know whether this particular
 cross has ever been by ceremonial sanctioned | or blessed. It does not matter. That sort l of civilized deed cousecrates itself and all
 things that go with it. To the Irish of all l | The most eminent successor to St. Mura was
 Maelmura (the servant of Mura.) Of this l erudite bardic historian 1t is recorded in al
 moat inspired verse: The great and fertile 1 Ireland never produced 0 man like the mild fine Maelmura. There mixed not C
 nobler face with the dead" do not be.
 lieve there is loftier or more poetically ex
 pressi7e sentence in all languages than that
 last. It is to this most ancient of Irish his toric bArds, who died in $50, that Ireland owes the preservation of the first accounts o1 , the Milesian or Gadelian race. It is found | in Maelmura's Duan Eiresnnach, or poem o
 Ireland, written about $50. The bard relates that on the engulfnQ or Pharaoh the Egyp ) tians were angered with the children o Niul, who were descended from Fenius o Seythia, for declining assistance in pursuing the Israelites. Fearing enslavement thel seized Pharaoh's deserted ships, and fled b! way of the Red Sea, India and Asia to Soy 3 thia, their own country. After long tim Asruth, son of Gadhael Cor Gael, from whon 7 the Irish have been called Gael, proceede' with the descendants of Ninl to Tapraban B (Ceylon), when, two hundred and ninet. : years thereafter, at the destruction Of Troy
 Brath, nineteenth in descent from Fentus led an expedition ito the north of tn , worl6;" and passing Crete, came to "Espail . the peninsular" Conquering certain terri @ tory, his son, Breogan, built city calle - Brigantia; and finally, sallying from loft ], 1 tower he had built on the coast, his son, Itt 6 brave explorer, discovered Fri or Ireland - as far as Luimnech (Limerick), the countr j. about the mouth of the Shannon.
 @ I had not yet ascended Sieve Snagh @ (Mountain of Snew) and as some little tim f before had enjoyed probably the grandss 6 sunshine scene from the massive walls upo n Aileach to be found in all Ireland, detel - mined, before leaving the extreme north, ', witness the setting of the sun, if some luck y abfence of the almost ever-hovering mist
 might permit it, from the loftiest peak (
 I laRo off0 ma a