Morning journal and courier., 1889-01-19

days, you feel and know its existence. In architecture it finds surprising number oi witnesses. It flashes to your consciousness in color, form, carriage and grouping among above all, in a certain pathetic loftiness of expression from the eyes, and the large, mo- bile, almost passionate mouth of those of gentler birth. So strange is this all upon you, even in it's vagarous, feeting influence, that your fancy instantly transforms that old half Moorish Franciscan church tower into mosqued covering for chimes of di- minutive cracked bells, which you expect to hear in fretful din every hour of the twenty four, just as at Havana, Barcelona or Ma drid. In that graceful balcony, or behind this quaint old lattice work, you feel there must be swsying cortinas of lace or reeds, where hides the enoIitas of the Spanish homes you know; and now and then glimpses of the dark, lustrous eyes, the blue black hair of grape film shade, the dazzling teeth and the matchless symmetry. of such an one are truly caught for your poetic feasting In these huge archways are mendicants, types OF Spanish laZaroni. In tremendous iron and iron bolted wooden doors, with oth CT half or quarter doors set within them, if the same old sign of Spanish aggressive de- fensiveness. In the queer little sliding wickets you find the same hint of secrecy mystery, caution and fear. In wide, huge porch and entrsda Turk suggestions of luxu. rious spaciousness behind. While in walled court, with hideoEs outer facades and beau tiful inner decoration, you have an almost exact copy of the entrancing patios or en. closed habitstion garden courts of fair Cuba and southern Spain.
 But in these are found the least in this in- teresting heritage of heredity. Among the three or four hundred fsh-wives of Galway are an hund1ed women of frame, face, com plexion and unconscious race manner, who tYaua af fhnHa vuh vriJ fnd ivS the same vocation in all the seaport cities of Spain. There are not half dozen distinc- lively typical Irish faces among the saucy lot. It is only when you hear their wild, shrill voices, catch their luscious brogue, or become hapless victim of their merciless billingsgate, that this wonderful semblance is dispelled. Then the awakening is so dreaming, or in what grotesque guise these folk will next be masking. Wherever one turns in the quaint city the race likeness is met Out of that spacious mansion comes 8 digni6ed old man. He is an Irishman, but he has the manner and very look of Span ish grandee. Here at the window you mod estly peer into the face of lady young or old. The broad forehead, deep set, luminous eyes, the wide arching eye brows-truly gift in Irish beauty, but never so marked as here the oval face, the large, half open lips and the square round chin will greet you. These belong to Irish women. But Spanish face and form surely enfold the Irish heart and soul On this huge arched bridge gather lettering peasant women from far Conemara wilds, looking longingly at the myriads of salmon in the Corrib beneath. See the red, black and yellow in their coarse raiment be- tween bare heads and bare knees. You can. not find such striking colors north of the Ty- rol Under this arch; by the edge of this park, which you think of as @ plaza; in wide, huge doorways; at crumbling church porches; where lanes and alleys tangle and lose themselves in mazes of picturesque an. gles; see the flashing of these barbaric orien. tai colors See the 1.-the, supple forms; the shapely feet and legs; the free, wide, gene rous gesture; the head carried burden; the cloaking of exquisite natural grace under the old black bIaideens; the universal draping of raiment or ornament from the wonderful coal black hair; the unconsciously daring, straightforward, half wondering, half pa thetic, look out of those great black or dark blue eyes, which so entrances in women oi the tropics; the long, dropping eye lashes, far more marked than with Irish beauties, SC distinguished in this respect: as well ss in numerable other touches and traces of simil itude-all heritage of the warm and pas' sionste south; and the student of ethnology has before him most extraordinary proof ol the marvellous impress left by Spanish dom ination of fully a thousand years ago upoI this isolate Irish 'sCity of the Tribes.'
 Down through the very center of old Gal way rushes the river Corrib to the sea from l the weird castle lined, mountain hemme6 lake Corrib above. On either side are an cient mills, now crumbling and deserted, full of arches and dark reoesses like dank clois ters in old abbey ruins, where the water tha once moved the tireless wheels fret and scolt among the shadowy silences as if moaningl, ! calling the dead activities to reawakened life A great and now unused canal with massive walls and coping, leading from thp bay t the still waters of the river above, passe ! like line of silver to the right. Frodp thii to the north bank, beyond which ons Amay ' see over gray old walls to a horizon e6g | fretted with mountain heights rising from Conemara wilds, reach bridges of stone | broad, arched and huge. From these ons may feast his eyes on such prodigious schools \ of salmon as are never elsewhere in the sigh of man. The Corrib is black with them Apparently sullen and half lifeless in thes' | winter days, with noses pointed up stream | they seem to float there motionless and still and in gentle swails or rockets" of the rive bed hundreds massed together can be count ! ed Here for short distance, and above, ii | the most important salmon fishery and th' grandest 'sslmon leaps" to be found il | Ireland. But at no season of the year may
 they be taken, save by the rich, and thel | only on payment of one pound 8 rod per day | though the numberless canny poachers wh, ] laze about the weirs, and who are ready ts | turn "coaching" angler for tyro, revealing piscatorial dodgers never before of cours'
 revealed to mortal man, have pretty ways 0
 'ifouling" the luscious fish with marvelou dexterity and matchless innocence, almos
 under the very noses of the vigilant keeper | themselves.
 Around the weirs and deserted q1ays on | will chance upon many strange characte studies indeed; but, after the fsh-wives c Galway, the most interesting body of fol in all Ireland are those of little Claddagh b
 the shore This village of thatehed huts 1 a part of Galway itself, but completely dis tinct from it. Its edge is not stone throw from the ancient fish market quay
 and from the lower bridge across the Cor rib you can almost step within the yer cabins Here are perhaps three thousan
 souls, fishermen and their families. C these five hundred are fishermen, and alto
 gether they own nearly three hundred boat!
 These are single masted, of from six to eigt
 tons burthen, and they are not unlike th
 famous "Quoddy" boats used by the herrin
 fishers of our far northeast coast. For owe fifteen centuries, just as to-day, Claddag
 fishermen have wielded undisputed sway ove
 the coves of Galway Bay and the Conemal
 coast They are 8 picturesque lot in the
 blue attire, patient and silent save unds
 wrong to their established rights. The
 they are demons indeed. Many strane
 old custom is clung to Loyalty. Even to tn
 day the spring fleet never departs without i
 prieetly blessing. This is 8 very solem matter with them. As of old their "king"
 annually elected, precisely as with my friend
 the gipsies; and he is as inyiolably obeye'
 Claddagh folk are truly more saturated vii
 omens, portents, signs and all manner
 superstitions than any other waterside cha
 acters ever knew; but they also believe
 the veritable presence of God among ther This is so intense feeling that one new addresses another without the name of G. is used, and that never irreverently. Tn are all experts with the sling and stone, e. [ ceiling the accuracy of the Indian with t bow and arrow. They intermarry like gi l eies, and like gipsies still, drive from amol ] them one who haplessly weds outside | : clan. The repetition of Christian nam 3 thus becomes so common that distinction } made by calling one Jack, Jack the herrin another Jack the eel, another Jack the co | and still another Jack the hake. One
 their most curions and pathetic customs is
 "waking" home remaining apparel of o
 lost at sea. It is weird, mournful and describably affecting scene. Contemplati these strange people as passing study, o !? may imagine them altogether happy in tn
 ignorance and simplicity. But there is 6
 other side to the picture. Lives grow 1T
 this their life with unutterable longing
 something different, better, higher. I
 slavish misery and fear of ostracism 6
 | I;s0raoa hold auoh ppti1 fha haart xvaarS q