Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-20

Indian summer days, YOU feel and know its
existence. In architecture it finds a sur
prising number of witnesses. 1t flashes to
your consciousness in color, form, carriage
and grouping among the lowly, and in car
riage, face contour, and above all in cer-
tain pathetic loftiness of expression from
the ewes, and the large, mobile, almost pas
sionate, mouth, of those of gentler birth.
So strong is this all upon you, even in its
vagarious, fleeting influence, that your fancy
| instantly transforms that old half-Moorish
| Franciscan church tower into q mosqued COW
| erinC for chimes of diminutive cracked bells,
which you expect to hear in fretful din every
! hour of the q, just as at Havana. Barcelona, or
Madrid.
SPANISH TYPES.
In that graceful balcony or behind this quaint
| old lattice work. you feel there must be sway
| ing cortinas of lace or reeds, where hide the
| senoritas of the Spanish homes you know; and
! now and then glimpses of the dark, lustrous
| ewes the blue black hair of Crape-tlm shade,
| the dazzling teeth and the matchlcss symmetry
of such an one are truly caught for your poetic
| feasting. In these huge archways are mendi-
cants types of Spanish lazaroni. In ire
| with other half or quarter doors set within
| them, is the same old sign of Spanish aggres-
sive-defensiveness. In the queer little sliding
wickets you find the same hint of secrecy, mys-
terry, cautonaand fear In wide. huge porch
and enIrada lurk suggestions of luxurious spa
ciousness behind. While in walled court with
| hideous outer facades and beautiful inner
decoration, you have an almost exact copy of
| the enhancing patios or inclosed habtation
| garden courts of fair Cuba or Southern Spain.
But in these are found the least in this inter-
| esting heritage of heredity. Among the 800 OF
| 400 1sh-wives of Galway are 100 women of
frame, face, complexion and unconscious race
manner, who are precise types of those you
Will tind i'll the same vocation in all the seaport
cities of Spain. There are not a half dozen
distinctly typical Irish faces among the saucy
lot. 1t is only when you hear their wild. sbrill
voices catch their luscious brogue, or become
hapless victim of their mercless billingsgate.
that this wonderful semblance is dispelled.
Then the awakening is so startling that one
wonders if he has been dreaming, or in what
grotesdue guise these folk will next he mask
ing. WhercveIone turns in the quaint city,
the race likeness is met Out of that spacious
mansion comes a dignified old man. He is an
lrishman, but he has the manner and verv look
oil Spanish grandee Here at the window you
modestly peer into the face of lady, young or
old. The broad forehead, deep-set, luminous
ewes, the wide-arching eyebrows-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 be-
long 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 Conernara wilds, looking
longingly at the myriads of salmon in the Cor
rib Deneath. See the red, black and yellow in
their coarse raiment between bare heads and
bare knees. You cannot find such striking
colors north of the Tyrol.
AN ORIENTAL SCENE.
Under this arch; by the edge of this park,
which you think of as plaza: in wide, huge
doorways; at crumbllng church porches; where
lanes and alleys tangle and lose themselves in
mazes of picturesque angles; see the flashing of
these barbaric oriental colors. See the 1.-the
supple forms; the shapely feet and legs; the
free, wide. generous gesture; the head-carried
burden; the cloaking of exquisite natural grace
under the old black braideens; the universal
draping of raiment or ornament from the won-
derful coal-black hair: the unconsciously dar-
lnC straightforward, half-wonderng haif-pa-
Ihetic, look out of those great black, or dark
blue, eyes, which so entrances in women of the
tropics; the long, dropping eyelashes, far more
marked than with Irish beauties, so distin-
guished in this respect: as well as innumerable
other touches and traces of similitude-all
heritage of the warm and passionate South;
and the student of ethnology Las before him
most extraordinary proof of the marvellous i'm
press left by Spanish domination of fully
LOCO years ago upon this isolate Irish City of
the Tribes"
Down through the very center of old Galway
rusheS the river Corrib to the sea from the
weird castle-lined, mountain-hemmed lake Cor
rib above. On either side are ancient mills.
now crumbing and deserted full of arches and
dark Tecesses like dank cloisters in old abbey
ruins, where the water that once moved the
tireleSs wheels fret and scold among the shadowy
slenceS as if moaningly calling the dead activi-
ties 10 reawakened life. A great and now un-
used canal with massive walls and coping, lead
ing from the bay to the still waters of the river
above, passes like line of silver to the right
From this to the north bank. beyond which one
may see over gray old walls to a horizon-edge
fretteG with mountain heights rising from
COnemara wlds. reach bridges of stone broad,
arcGed and huge. From these one NAV feast
his eyes on such prodigious schools of salmon
as are never elsewhere in the sight
of man. The Corrib is black with them. Ap-
parentlv sulleu and half ifeless in these winter
days, with noses pointed upstream, they seem
to float there motoness and STILL and in gentle
swailS or pockets" of the river bed hurdreds
maSsed together can he counted. Here for
short distance, and above. is the most import
ant salmon fishery and the grandest salmon
leaps to be found in Ireland. But at no sea-
son of the year may they be taken, save by the
rich, and then only on payment of FL a rod per
day: though the numberless cannp poachers
who laze about the weirs, ana who are ready
to turn coaching" angler for tyro, revealing
plscatorial dodges never before of course re-
vealeu to mortal man, have pretty ways of
"fouling' the luscious fish with marvellous
dexterity and matchless innocence, almost
under the very noses of the vigilant keepers
themselves.
A CHARACTER STUDY.
Around the weirs and deserted quays one
will chance upon many strange character
studies indeed: but, after the fishwives of Gal
way, the most interesting body of folk IN all
Ireland are those of little Claddagh by the
shore. This village of thatched huts is a part
of Galway itself, but completely distinct from
it. Its edge is not stones throw from the an.
cient fsh market quay; and from the lower
bridge across the Corrib you can aim ost step
within the very cabins. Here are perhaps 5000
souls, fishermen and their families. Of these
500are fishermen, and altogether they own nearly
300 boats These are single-masted, of from six
to eight tons burthen. and they are not unlike
the famous ''Quoddy" boats used by the herring
fishers OF our far northeast coast. For over Is
centuries just as to-day. Claddagh fishermen
have welded undisputed sway over the coyes
of Galway hay and the Conemara coast They
are picturesque lot in their blue attire, pa
tient and silent save under wrong to their es-
tablished rights. s.ssThen they are depons indeed
Many strange old custum is clung to loyallv.
Even to this day the spring feet never departs
without its priesty blessing. This is yerv
solemn matter with them. As. of old. their
liking" is annually elected, precisely as with
my friends, the gipsies; and he is as inviolablv
obeyed. Claddagh folk are truly more satu-
rated with omens portents. signs and all man
ner of superstitions than any other waterside
characters / ever knew; but they also believe
in the verlrable presence of God among them.
This so intense a feeling that one never adj
dresses another without the name of God is
used, and that never irreverently. They are
all experts with the sling and stone excelling
the accuracy of the Indian with the bow and
arrow. They intermarry like gipsies and like
gipsies still, drive from among them one who
haplessly weds outside the clan. The repeti-
ton of Christian names thus becomes SO
common that distinction is made by calling
one Jack. Jack the herring, another Jack the
aa1 fhar Tanl- fla rod and
Jack the hake. One Of their most curious
and pathetic customs is of waking" the home
remaining apparel of one lost at sea- 1t is a
weird, mournful and indescribably affecting
scene. Contemplating these strange people as
passing study, one may imagine them alto
gether happy in their ignorance and simplicity.
But there is another side to the picture. Lives
grow into their life with unutterable longing