Morning journal and courier., 1892-12-10


| center of the bay is the fine old town, its
ancient walls and roofs contrasting strange
| ly with its modern ways and fscsdes. 4
sleepy yet fright old face has Ramsey;
| like some moulding grsndam whom hoyden
children have stolen upon in her sleep to
| beiower and eribbon, and who, on wax
ing, has as much mischief in her glad old
eyes as in the merry hearts that made the
frolic. To th right and left, villas and
villages innu,lerable; and behind, but
mile or two away, the golden gorse is
blended with the purples and mists among
the heights of North Barrule.
In rounding the Point of Ayre your
skipper will cease his tales and attend
closely to his little craft. 1t ia q danger
GUS ocean way. The meeting of the tides
causes almost maelstrom, "the Strseu,"
or strife, contention, the Manx call 1t.
All around the northern coast, which is
low, from sea to sward are strange ter
races of sea cobbles; small, polished
stones as round as cannon balls. They are
constantly changing their position from
the action of the waters, and are as tresch-
erous to the foot as quickssnds. Between
Ayre lighthouse and the northern base of
the mountains, perhaps an eighth of the
total area of Man, is an almost level plain.
1t is called the "Currsgh." The most
primitive of the Manx paasantry are found
here; and Celtic affinities are most pro-
nounced. In more than a hundred tiny
hamlets like the ''suld clachans" of the
Scottish Highlands you will find fully
| nine tenths possessing the Celtic sppels-
tive Ball Gown, as Ballavsrkish, Ballakin-
nag, Bsllahesney, and the like.
all along down the west coast your in
terest will be divided between glimpses of
strange old Msnx hamlets peeping from
the mountain bases where flashes of foam
| ing streams tremble like the gorse tops
upon the hills, with the splendid noun
tain views behind and above, and the
plainly discerned Irish coast where the
Mourne mountains through the distance
cover with purple their emerald green.
But at last hero is ancient Peel, Thistle
Head and st. Patrick Isle. Miles of white
strand thread along the coast to the brown
old nest upon the rncka, like shining way
of faith leading unfalteringly to dateless
antiquity. No cobweb lover will be dis
Qruntled that broom of progress has
| modernized Peel. Everything is old and
mellow and dim. The hundreds of fish-
ing craft forming with their old masts an
| antique tracery before the town seem to
belong to a forgotten age. Dark are its
walls, narrow its streets, tiny its windows,
grave and silent its people.
Gray and old and mora forbidding than
hsrbor mouth 1t stands on Patrick's
Holm, OR st. Patrick's Island, seven acres
in extent Venerable, haunted and hal
lowed all. Hsllowed and venerable, for
St Patrick himself raised the beginnings
of the church on whoss site tbs half ruins
of great cathedral are now found.
Haunted because of inexpressible cruslties
and foul murders in crypts and castle here.
Through these lofty pillars, bending arch
ho11 I,ar oTasl lx-t \
tied altars, one can stride from the nine
teenth to the fifth century. In the sad
dening echoes of the sea calls he can
hear the meanings Of imprisoned Flea
nor, the curses or Stanley, the trium-
phant "Allelujshl" of Germsnus that put
| to rout the Ssxons in the bloody Flint
shire fields. Haunted, more than all else
| to MAnxland mind, because it is the
| abiding place for all time of that most
| terrible Of Manx powers of darkness, the
| black and dreadful Moody Dhoo."
From Peel TO Port Erin is a mstcbless-
| ly wild aud romantic reach Of coast.
| There il Ecarcely break in the lofty,
| precipitous wall. And what q grand
| spot Is this Port Erin and environE! The
| Manx mountains rise solemn and dark
/ bahind The bay IL an almos. laudlocked
cove. Tremendous Brsdda Head, rising
| FIVE hundred feet sheer from the sea,
| shuts out the bowling northern tempests.
\ Another beadlsnd sweeps around aud mp
| from the south. Once the ancient port
was rich from commerce with Ireland.
| Now 1t is a dark antique. sleeping with
/ in q bed of myrtle. The fashionable
have found it out, and soon another gay
| and brilliant Palermo will hide its ancient
walls.
Now you are spsd around the Calf of
Man. Bolder, gfander, more grewsome
/ rra11 nd f-,f
| chasms Resistlsss tides gnaw at its base.
The angry spume Is flung to its topmost
| crags. 1t is desOlate of human life. NIL
| lions of sea fowl wheel and shriek above
i 1t. But one other spot have ssen go typ
ical of furious desOlstiOu. Where the Ar
ran Island crags receive the ceaselsss
pouudiDgs of the Atlantic, and the thun-
ders OF the everlasting hattie are so great
that even the sFa guile shIisk Is soundlsss,
| is another such a needless place.
Coss;ing along the eastern shore again,
first Spanish Head is passed and then
| Port st. Mary. Between there Is typical
| Manx hamlet called Cregneish. 1t is a lit
tie cluster of centuries old stone cottages.
| Huge walls connect each. The old habits
aud dress of the ancient Asnx are still
preserved by it's tEo-soore inhabitants.
Until recently the ManI language was sole
| iy spoken here. The folk are fishermen,
L
| fairies still live with them, and will re-
| main until the modern vices come.
Here at Port ST. Mary during the fish
| ing season is the rendezvous OF the Manx
herring feet. If you are here at that time
| it will remind you of the animated scenes
in August at Wick in Scotland, or Lerwick
| in Shetland. The anchorage is crowded
with heavily laden fishlng smacks, whose
| brown calls shine like FURNISHED copper
in the sun; while others are constantly
| rounding the point iutO the bay. Small
boats are flied with the shining silysry
fish passing to and fro between the smaoks
and the shore. Buyers carts drive into
the water up to their aIles the resdier to
receiye the fsh. Not hundreds, but thou
sands, of men, women and children, all in
fue frenzy of cumulative industry, seur-
rying in all directions, snd clad in strange
attire, fll up the picturesque and busy
scene. These folk srs nearly all Wesleyan
Methodists. They are "a like the Cornish
fisher folk of ST. Ives rs the herring of
both; and none of their boats ever put to
sea on Saturday or Sunday; nor do they
at any time venture upon their sea hsr-
vestings without goodly prayers and
psalms.
4 little farther to the north dark and
gray lies Csstletown, now SIS of old, among
its darker Limestone rocks, with its an
cient castle still more somber towering
grewsomely above. This is the once fa-
mous Rushsn castle, with scanty remains
of Rushen Abbey near, and scene of the
murder of wicked King Reginald by Ivsr,
the good knight. The Danes founded the
castle, and it resembles Elsinor of Hamlet
fame. Its uses now as q prison do not de-
tract from its almost ferocious grandeur.
The Abbey, the last doomed suppression
in Britain, is an offshoot of beautiful old
Furness Abbey, just across the channel in
Lancashire, where the bones of many a
king of Man were willed to lie.
Back at Douglas again from such con-
temptation as this of the "desr little Isle
of Man." and 1 warrant you are q score of
years and an hundred books in advantage
over him who enters Mainland at the sea
gates of its splendid town, and views its
form aud folk through the false perspec-
tive of fine hotels, crowds of summer or
winter idlere, and the misleading gay ac-
tivities comparing with those of our own
Bar Harbor or Newport. for an English
Bournemouth or Brighton.
Here of course is some true Msnx color
in the strange old closes and wynds of the
ancient part of the city; but Douglas is
essentially a fashionable watering place
the whole year round. You must leave
| nnuplaa behind to cOmpletely know Mauy-