what a noble expanse, as East, and West, we ran our eye coastward.-To the right, Baltimore; to the extreme left, Crookhaven, and the Mizen head, and studded along, rose -Sea-girt isles, That like to rich and various gems, inlay And here and there this bold coast had its high head-lands, and cave-cut promontories, relieved with fortresses of other times, pleasing to the eye from their picturesque forms and positions; interesting to the mind, from the associations connecting us with days gone by, of romance, enterprize, and peril. Eastward, the dark Rosbrine, the Fortalice of Felimey O'Mahony, the pirate and the Popeling, under the shelter of whose strong hold the Spanish Jesuits from Valladolid and Salamanca landed, and diffused their deadly animosity against Elizabeth and the Reformation.-Here Archer, Sanders, and Allen concocted the furious insurrections of Tyrone and Desmond; and hither came Carew, the Lord President, with all the power of Munster, to quell the pride, and lay low the bulwarks of the Bishop of Rome : and where is now the Psalter of Rosbrinethe rhyming record of all the pious practices, and crimson achievements of these sea Lords. Nearer again, Ardtenent Castle, another cliff-nest of these Mahonys; and in the western offing, look at the Black Castle out there, like a solitary cormorant watching all day long its prey on her rock-perch. And westward still, the bold and high Ballydivelin, see how it cuts the clear blue sky with its embattled loftiness. O! says Denis O'Driscol, one of the boatmen, as he rested on his oar, many a white bone, bleaching under sea and sun is wet and dry, day by day, under that old Castle; there lie the unburied bones of two tribes of the Mahonys-Justin Oge, and Carberry Buy O'Mahony of the North. They fell out about a prey of cattle, and met here to decide the feud on that sunny strand; for a summer's day they fought hand to hand, and foot to foot. Justin's true love, the sloe-eyed Grace O'Sullivan, sat on the tower of Ballydivelin. Justin fought under the weavings of his Grace's scarf; and Carbury Buy never feared, or pitied, or forgave, -on they fought, till the sun sinking over Crookhaven, looked on them all lying lifeless on the strand, like tangled sea-weed; not a mother's son remained alive to wake or carry to the grave the exterminated tribe. It was now time to look seaward, where the southern expanse lay beautifully green --a liquid jasper beneath your eye; but like sheeted quick-silver before it. Thus the ocean in all its smooth splendour, lay basking beneath the sun; quiescent after its equinoctial troubles, and yet there was a long, full, slow swell, heaving in from the south; like the calm breathings of a Giant's sleep, it majestically raised our little skiff, and laid us down again; as if it would say in the treachery of its "grim repose," how could I do harm-I who had never been on the ocean before-who had never crossed any sea, except the narrow channel that divides Wales from Dublin, now, out in a little bark on the skirts of the Atlantic, I was greatly struck with this awful swell, that seemed as an attribute of its own great grandeur, unconnected with the influence or operation of any other element. As we rowed along, we came near an island, on the western side of which was a little sandy cove protected by an old shattered castle, whose top was covered with grey moss, and its base clothed with sea-weed, and studded with limpets.-This was evidently, in distant times, the hold and retreat of some dark rover of the deep-some barbarian that united the bold bad occupations of the smuggler and the pirate. In latter days, within man's memory, it was the scene, of shipwreck, ruin, and plunder. Before light-houses were established, and placed under the now admirable arrangements on those coasts, it was too much the practice, for the barbarian dwellers of these rocks and isles, to hang out false lights to lure unwary vessels in dark and stormy weather, to venture in and to go to pieces on these rocks.* In this way, on a dark and howling night, was a wisp of potato stalks kept burning on the top of the Castle, and Denis Mahony who had the care of the light, says to his son Felix, Phelim my boy, I see a light, it seems to be on this side the Calves-sure enough a vessel has mistaken our lucky wisp for Crookhaven light; in she comes, give me a fresh wisp. She is our's, as sure as there is a cottoner in Cork.-There she drives, sweep, crash, on the Seal rock; Phelim, my darling, she is our's. Such was the language of the old wrecker to his son. The whole family, the whole islanders were soon down on the shore-an African trader had struck on the * I am informed by one who knows the southern coast better than a hasty traveller can, that the most approved method of alluring a vessel amongst the rocks of this dangerous coast, was to tie a lanthorn about the neck of a horse, and send him out to graze along the shore; and the tossing of the light as the animal lifted or lowered his head, resembling the moving of a ship's light, mariners were induced to believe that they might safely keep nearer shore as a vessel was seen still nearer than themselves; and thus they struck upon the rocks-this was also the established custom in Connemarra and Erris on the western coast..ith Coretice |