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which they can draw on shore, and which can be used for the purposes of fishing or pilotage, only in settled weather. harbour where decked vessels or large boats, like those of the Kinsale fishermen, might ride securely, would soon make a change in the circumstances of the inhabitants; they would then be enabled to avail themselves of a situation so admirably adapted for the deep-sea fishery; and there is reason to think that this is practicable: at all events the place would be worth the examination of a Government Engineer.--The south cove from its immediate exposure to the ocean, is of course impracticable; but the north cove is much more favourably circumstanced, and it is through that a mole or pier might be constructed at comparatively moderate expense; and it would be worthy of a paternal government to take measures conducive to the well being of a numerous and rapidly increasing population; and the proprietor of the island, William W. Becker, Esq. would doubtless contribute to the work.

Now let us attend to the probable consequences of such an improvement-an almost daily intercourse would be opened between Cape Clear and the mainland-vessels would be enabled to start either for fishery or pilotage, at every favourable change of the wind-a permanent revenue establishment might be formed in the neighbourhood of the harbour, for the prevention of smuggling; and thus a little Protestant colony would be settled there, perhaps a small church might be built and a curate settled, and certainly a school-house established; and thus a Protestant Government would be entitled to say we have at length done something for an island containing a numerous race of hardy, honest, and adventurous natives; and which has hitherto never received the smallest favour, either in the way of encouragement, or relief, or instruction; and to which attention has been as little turned as to Kamtschatka."

"I also remember," says the same correspondent, “ the extraordinary attachment which the natives bore to their apparently desolate island; so much so, that when crimes were perpetrated amongst them, (and they were very rare,) the only mode devised for repressing them was, that a tribunal authorised by the priest and the proprietor, sentenced the delinquent to banishment to the mainland for a longer or shorter period, commensurate to the offence; and this punishment proved so effectual, that it was rarely found that a person so punished ever attempted to commit a crime again; and no jail prisoner ever returned to the bosom of his family, after long and loathsome confinement, with more delight, than the poor Caper whose time of banishment had expired, came back to his beloved island.

SKETCHES

IN THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.

LETTER II.

TO THE REV. THOMAS P. ME.

DEAR SIR,

HAVING abundant business to call me away from the village of Skull, before I took my leave of my valued friend and his hospitable attentions, he asked me would I go and see his humble little church-a plain building, said he, and fitted for perhaps as plain, and yet as ample a congregation as any in Ireland; few parishes even in Protestant Ulster, can boast of a better filled house of worship. We walked, therefore, some hundred yards to this unadorned but neat building, which stands on a high elevation over

the sea and when its modest little belfry and whitewashed walls send their bright shadows over the water on a calm and sunny Sabbath day, when all is still, when even the sea-birds are silent on the rocks, and the toll of the church-going bell circulates solemnly over the bay, the sacred sounds reverberating from cliff, and castle, and cave,—it must be a tranquil and blessed scene, as sun, earth and ocean harmonize with that peace which religious worship communicates, and which worldliness with all its pretences and promises, cannot give and cannot take away.

I observed in the grave-yard, that Protestants and Romanists were buried in distinct allotments. It was unseemly thus to carry division even into the grave; to see mortals lie separate in their common clay, and divided even in their dust, though believing in one common God, and seeking to enter a common heaven by the only merits of one atoning Saviour.

Here I was shown the grave of a holy priest; I had seen one before at Kinsale,

but now I had more leisure to examine and enquire concerning this object of a most degrading, disgusting, and barbarous superstition. Unlike every other grave in this large cemetry, no head-stone was elevated, no grave-stone covered the sacred dust, not even a sod 'heaved its mouldering heap;' but the grave looked like a shallow pit, the bottom of which was covered with small stones and rags, scraps of cloth, cotton, and linen. On enquiring why this grave had such a peculiar aspect? I was informed that the clay was all carried away, in order to be infused in water, and drank by Catholics and their cattle, as a cure for disease in the one, and a remedy against sin in the other; and that it was deemed proper in every case when a devotee carried the holy clay away, to bring back the rag in which it was conveyed, and deposit it on the grave. "And pray," said I, " was

this Priest remarkable for his extreme sanctity? Did the Divinity stir within him ?'— did he walk as if God was with him?-was he a powerful preacher, able and successful in

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