Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-29
QUEENSTOWN.
THE FIRST PORT MADE BY AMERICAN
STEAMERS TO LIVERPOOL.
Mails Left and Received There-The
Passengers Receptiol-Fa-
nous Places.


tive sound to most travellers to and from
Europe 1t is as good as the end or be-
ginning of the ocean voyage on that side
as Sandy Hook is on this. 1t is the first
stop for a steamer from New York to
Liverpool, and many passengers land there
instead of completing the voyage PREFER
ing to go on by rail. The first bit of land
sighted by boat from the United States
is Crookhayen. This is simply station
where the vessel is spoken and her safe ar
rival is telegraphed over the world. From
this point to Queenstown is about eighty
miles, with but little to see but high and
broken cliffs as a coast line. At the en-
trance to Queenstown harbor is bold pro-
montory called Roche's point. Here the
mails and passengers not going to Liver
pool and transferred to tender and taken
on shore. All incoming steamers leave
the mails here, and when bound out take
on the English mails. The distance from
Queenstown to Liverpool is 240 miles, and
steamers usually take from seventeen to
twenty hours in making it.
The time is occasionally increased by
insufficiency of water at the Liverpool
bar. But by the mail service via Dublin
ard Holyhead the time between Queens.
town and London, POI miles farther than
Liverpool, is only nineteen hours, so it is
possible for a mail to be delivered in Lon
don before the steamer which brought it to
Queenstown has entered the Mersey. The
service is by train to Cork and Dublin /;
thence by channel steamers across the Irish
sea to Holyhead, on the Welsh coast, and
from Holyhead to the metropolis by fast
trains, which cover the distance, 260 miles,
in six hours and forty minutes.
In coming to America the steamers
wait at Queenstown for the mail leaving
London at 9 o'clock in the evening of the
day on which they sail from Liverpool.
If one left the latter port at noon Satur-
day, she would be in Queenstown early
Sunday morning, and would anchor there
until the arrival of the train which left
London nine hours after she left Liver
pool, and which would be due in Queens
town at about 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon.
A business man also gains a working day
on shore by using the mail route to
Queenstown, and the steamers themselves
find it a convenient port for the embarka-
ton of emigrants from Ireland. The pas
sengers who embark at Liverpool usually
have enough time ashore at Queenstown,
while the steamers are waiting for the
mail, TO see the harbor. the River Lee,
Cork, and even to kiss the Blarney stone,
and for those bound to Europe it is the
best starting point for the tour of Killar-
ney.
Queenstown harbor is somewhat like
that of New York. As the Narrows pro-
tect the latter, Roche's Point and its oppo-
site headland shut out the storms from the
former and keep the water within smooth
when that outside is raging. The circular
bay, with its islands and hilly shores, is
also a duplicate Of what may be seen in
the neighborhood OF Staten Island. At
the mouth the land is craggy and the
nights are fortified, but further in the
foliage is profuse. There is anchorage for
thousands of ships and sufficient depth
of water to admit the largest at all tides.
At the head of the bay, almost straight
from the Point, is the town, built in ter
races, on a wooded and heathery bluff.
! The houses are nearly all white and uni
form in feature. Their color and the fire.
quent green which surrounds them give
them a tropical resemblance, especially
when the sun lights them up and distills
rainbow tints from the atmosphere.
At the foot of the cliff and along the
quays is street of shops and tayerns, most
Of them aiming for. patronage at tourists,
emigrants and seamen. The higher ter
races are principally dwellings, and the
higher they are the better is the class to
which they belong. On the ridge above
all the others are two or three houses
which may be called palaces, Though the
interests of Queenstown are not much
varied, the lines Of caste and rank are
drawn with English precision. Primarily
the chief interest of Queenstown is as
a port of call Like Falmouth, on the
southern coast of England, it is made for
by many ships consigned to order, or sent
there that the choice of port OF deliv-
cry may be governed by the condition of
the market and their cargoes.
When passenger gets ashore he is met
by as noisy and demonstrative crowd OF
drivers and hawkers as he ever struck in any
| American Guy. OnitSS ldhluS Oue VI Tue
worn and rafting jaunting cars it is a
tedious and vexatious effort to get rid of
them all. If the first mob is escaped, it is
only to meet horde of beggars it is even
more difficult to shake. Then there are
| hawkers of various articles at outrageously
| high prices, who lie and hatter without
limit. If refusal to buy is persisted in,
the soft talk turns to abuse and curses.
Cork is eleven miles from Queenstown,
on the River Lee. Five miles beyond is
| Blarney. The town is busy village, de-
voted to making cloth, but Barney Castle,
once lived in by the Earls of Clancarty, is
only a ruin. The alleged power Of the
Barney stone to endow any one kissing it
| with special gift of soft and insinuating
speech" is familiar; but as it is necessary
to be hung head first from the top of the
tumbling castle to reach the stone set in
the wall, genuine oscillation is rarely en-
loved. If there is time, a visit to Glen
gariff and Killarney is very pleasant. The
region abounds in natural beauties, all
enhanced by history, tradition and poetry.
There are lakes and mountains, hills and
valleys, fertility and barrenness, green
lanes and bleak uplands. To reach Glen
gariff short railroad is taken to Bantry,
a little town on bay breaking in seven
miles from the Atlantic. Glengariff is at
the head of the bay among the mountains.
From hight above the scene is one of
sterile and tawny colored splendor. The
water spreading out to its gates is en-
circled by savage mountains; the rocks are
bare and brown; the sky is cold. But get
ting down to lower level there is an
elastic turf, springing under the foot, a
sound of many rills which gush out from
between the rocks, and delightful mild
ness of the air. The very hedges, as
dense as the hawthorn of English fields,
are compact masses of blossom. and the
vines Chamber up above every stone. There
are several houses and couple of hotels,
and 90 GENIAL is the climate that they are