THE STATE OF THE CAPERS.

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long shall I remember your joyous good-humour, your engaging good nature, your full possession of all those qualities which make Irishmen, with all their faults, the most social and entertaining people in the world.

Though the writer of these Sketches aims not at giving accurate and statistical information, yet he is desirous, in gratitude for the amusement afforded him during his day at Cape Clear, to call the attention of the public, as far as in him lies, to the state of the poor Capers, and for that purpose shall quote the remarks of a correspondent who can be depended on :"Unfortunately the great want of this island, and the main cause of its poverty and depression, is the deficiency of a secure harbour. There are two indentures or coves by which the island is nearly bisected-one on the north, and the other on the south side they are wide at the entrance, and without any indenture to secure vessels from a wind blowing in, or from the dangerous agitation of a high swell. Hence the inhabitants are restricted to the use of very small boats, which they can draw on shore, and which can be used for the purposes of fishing or pilotage only in settled weather. A 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

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IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED.

exposure to the ocean, is, of course impracticable; but the north cove is much more favourably circumstanced, and it is thought 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, ¡Sir William W. Beecher, 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 main land-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."

66

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 he mainland for a longer or shorter period,

HOME, BE IT EVER SO HOMELY.

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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."

[It is now thirteen years since the above note was written, and the author has no means of knowing whether all or any of the improvements suggested have been carried into effect. In the meanwhile the observations may be allowed to stand, as a memorial of the pious and able individual (now no more) who suggested them, the Rev. Horace Townsend.-1839.]

CHAPTER VII.

BANTRY BAY.

Departure from Skull for Bantry-A Priest's Grave-Holy Clay-Extraordinary Consequences of Drinking an infusion of it for superstitious purposes-Passage over the Peninsula of Ivaugh-Industry of the IrishDescent of Mountain towards Dunmanus Bay-Description, by Peter Walsh, of the Milesians-State of Protestants in the South of Ireland, past and present-Consequences of extending the Elective Franchise to the Forty-shilling Freeholders-Value of a good Protestant MinistryView from the Mountain-road between Dunmanus and Bantry BayMagnificent Prospect-Panorama of Bantry Bay-Priest's Leap-Legend -Dunemarc Castle-Waterfall-Pass of Camineagh-Approach to it-Entrance into it-Admiration of it-Account of Battle in 1822-Captain Rock-His Generalship-His Enterprise-The loosened Rock-The bereaved Father-The Insurgent's Rashness-Captain Rock discomfited.

in

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 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 white-washed walls send their bright shadows over the water on a calm and sunny Sab

SCHISM IN THE GRAVE.

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bath-day, when all is still, when even the sea-birds are silent on the rocks, and the toll of the churchgoing 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 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 inquire concerning this object of a most degrading, disgusting, and barbarous superstition. Unlike every other grave in this large cemetery, no headstone was elevated, no grave-slab covered the sacred dust, not even a "sod heaved its mouldering heap;" but the grave