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grouse or partridge; but commend me to the sporting I had here one day, when we had game worthy of Gargantua, and a day's sport that the king of Brobdignag would not have despised. Just after breakfast one morning not many years ago, one of my people came running up to me in breathless haste, 'O, Sir, come down to us; bring all your guns, powder and ball; a whole herd of whales are in the bay, and one of them is already aground.' Accordingly I went down with all my guns and ammunition; and certainly found a whale of the bottle-nose species aground, or rather entrapped in the narrow pass at the mouth of this cove. We fired until we despatched it, and then with ropes and boat-hooks drew him to shore. He was succeeded by another, (for they all seemed to follow the leader,) which was despatched in the same way ; and thus thirty-three of them were secured and many a pound the poor fellows of the neighbourhood made by the oil, &c. which was obtained by this day's shooting."

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C. O.

SKETCHES

IN THE SOUTH OF IRELAND.

LETTER V.

TO THE REV. THOMAS P. M -E.

DEAR SIR,

On the following day my kind entertainers took an excursion towards the fall of Adrigoll, or Hungry Mountain. We passed between the sea-shore and the Sugar-loaf mountain, along a new road made to Bearhaven, on the M'Adamized plan; and nothing could be finer than the road, or grander than the outline of the mountain scenery-to the left, the broad expanse of Bantry Bayto the right, the mountains. We had no longer in view the woods of Glengariff; no improvement, no cultivation. At length we

came to where the continuous line of hills was interrupted, and room left for an open valley through which a stream descended and joined the sea: a pretty bridge, a sort of a village, a church, and close to the sea shore, a comfortable parsonage house; and straight before us Hungry Mountain, with the bed of the waterfall, like a dark deep chasm, indented down its side. But the weather had already set in with peculiar dryness, and there was not a rill of water where in winter is a fearful cataract.

"Did you ever see a dumb church?" said one of my companions. "And pray what is a dumb church?" "Why it is a church lately built and consecrated; but which has now no service in it, and is let to go to neglect and ruin." "And how long is this church built-for it, at this distance, from its position, colour, and elevation, appears to be quite a modern structure?" "It is not more than ten or twelve years erected the present Primate consecrated it." "Come, let us take a walk to see this first specimen that

has come under my observation of a dumb church." Accordingly the greater number of the party proceeded to take a view of the church. As we approached it, the desolation became more and more conspicuous; the windows all broken, sashes destroyed, shutters torn off their hinges, roof all stripped.

You might have supposed that the French, when they came into Bantry Bay thirty years ago, had landed here and made this their bivouac for the night, and left it in the morning, a specimen of what ruthless invaders could perpetrate: but it was no such thing; this place of worship was not thought of until twenty years after the French, by God's providence were driven from our shores. Its ruin then, was quite a native work; and there it stood a monument of desertion by Protestants, and of demolition by Romanists. We climbed in by one of the windows-a goat could have got in, and did get in, the same way;—and what desolation!—the pews torn to pieces the floor ripped up, and nothing remaining entire but the pulpit-it

seemed left in mockery of the ruin it overhangs. Into it I ascended, and was moved to address Him who heareth prayer, that he might put it into the hearts of those having authority, to restore this desecrated structure-to repair the place where once his honour dwelt; and that in future times the truth of the Gospel and unsearchable riches of Christ, should be preached with power and converting influence, from this now deserted pulpit. When we reached the entrance door of this degraded temple, it appeared that for some years at least, no entrance was made by this way; for long stalactites were hanging down from the door-way, formed by the slow combination of water with the lime of the damp wall; and there they hung like long white fingers, forbidding the door to open on its rusty hinges. Whatever was the cause of all this, my wish was that I could have the use of Aladdin's lamp, and by giving it a good scrubbing, induce the slave of the lamp to lift up that dumb church, and

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