ready, and the visitors, bundling themselves in and to a chorus of "staremashayes," drove off, the young soldier thrilled with the pride of a new appreciation of the gallant race it was his good fortune to serve with: a pride mingled with a regret that such a race, Nordic Aryans, cousins of his own, should be threatened with extinction by a fungus of Orientalised bureaucracy, a Dravidian wave sweeping up from the eastward, from degenerate Hindustan. He thought of whitened bones lying in pride of place far ahead of the British line, on the slopes of Aubers and on the ridges by St Julien. For the real racial frontier between Europe and Asia is not where a pedantic Chenovnik has stuck up a tricoloured barber's pole on the Ural slopes or in far Lenkoran, but on the Sutlej watershed, on the passes of Baltistan or the untrodden Mariong Pamir, in distant Khurasan, in the rugged foothills of Kasbek, where Aryan Georgian struggles with Mongol Turk; and finally, on the banks of the Niemen and the Vistula, in the North Ukraine, and amongst Lettish lakes and the tundras of Finmark. These are the tracts that divide the Aryan of Western Europe, Persia, Afghanistan, and the Punjab from the Mongol of Prussia, Muscovy, Finland, and Angora, and from the base Dravidian of Hindustan, and the sons of Shem from Arabia, Sind, and the Gulf shores. A SHOOTING TRIP IN THE EMERALD ISLE. BY A. W. LONG. I. FOR some time past my fishing, but only to careful brother Charles and I had been tenants. thinking seriously of taking a shooting-lodge in the wild West of Ireland for the winter, and after a long correspondence, had at last hit on what seemed a sportsman's paradise. According to the owner, game of every kind seemed to be touching each other on this particular estate-grouse, snipe, geese, plover, duck of all kinds, hares, curlew, and woodcock. Poachers were unheard of, the shooting-lodge a home from home; and as for the setters -well, it would seem that they could do anything bar talk. Our first effort to take a shooting, an advertisement in the 'Irish Times,' was most unfortunate; for, though it produced many answers from different parts of Ireland, hardly one had any reference to the kind of shooting we required. One man was willing to let us a hunting-box in Co. Kildare, and was quite sure that rough shooting could be rented in the neighbourhood; another offered us fishing in Co. Cork; and one lady was most anxious to let her little cottage on the shore of some large lake, where there was excellent bathing and the best of free Our only sister, Mary, declined to venture to a shootinglodge forty miles from the nearest station, and as the owner described it, "divil another decent house between it and America from which description we concluded that the lodge must be somewhere in the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean. But though Mary was going to stay at home, yet she took the greatest interest in our expedition, and bought every book on the West of Ireland she could find. The evening before we were to start for Ireland, Mary read us out a description of the Kingdom of Connaught from one of her numerous books-one she had picked up in a second-hand bookshop : "It lieth under a dark-grey cloud, which is evermore discharging itself on the earth, but like the widow's cruse, is never exhausted. It is bounded on the south and east by Christendom and part of Tipperary, on the north by Donegal, and on the west by the salt say. It abounds in bogs, lakes, and other natural curiosities: its soil consists of equal parts of earth and stone, and its surface is so admirably disencumbered of trees, shrubs, hedges, and ditches that an intelligent backwoodsman from Louisiana was heard to declare with rapture that it was the most perfectly cultivated territory in Europe." We said nothing, but Charles lit the candles and we retired to bed. On a fine October morning we landed at Kingstown, and just caught the breakfast train from Broadstone to the West; and after about two hours' travelling through an uninteresting country, changed on to a branch line, which would carry us to our destination, or rather to the terminus from which we were to start on our forty-mile drive. After we had left some small station, the train suddenly came to a halt, and the guard, engine-driver, and fireman held an excited conversation on the line. After a considerable time, we learnt from a fellow-passenger that the train's "staff " had been left behind at the last station, and that the guard dare not proceed without it. Further questioning informed us that we were on a single line, and that no train was allowed to leave the station without the "staff for the next station. It looked as though we were stuck indefinitely, but luck was with us. The guard suddenly appeared to go mad, yelling, and blowing his whistle, and waving his arms at a man riding a bicycle on the road, which at this point ran parallel with the railway line. It seemed that the cyclist was a friend of the guard's, and after the promise of gallons of porter, was induced to ride back to the last station, with a note to the station-master to hand over the missing staff without delay. After our long journey we must have fallen asleep, for presently we were startled by yells and cat-calls from the whole train, and on looking out of the window saw the cyclist tearing down the road and waving the missing" staff " above his head; and after a further delay of quite a quarter of an hour-every man and woman in the train had to thank the cyclist-we got under way again. Every station we stopped at was crowded with people, mostly young, who appeared to do nothing but walk up and down the platform, criticising the travellers in the train. A man in our carriage told us that this was a recognised form of amusement at all rural stations in the West of Ireland, and took the place of a cinema at many small towns. The country now began to change we were passing through the middle of Ireland green fields and hedges giving place to bogs and rushy land. I remembered an extract Mary had read out of one of her numerous books on Ireland, describing the country as an ugly picture in a beautiful frame, and certainly the description was most apt. same. But later on, after changing our fate might not be the again at another junction, we began to come to the "frame," and the description still held good. The train began to pass through a wild and pic turesque country, past great lakes and huge bogs with beautiful mountains in the background, and over all the soft and lovely lights from the low autumn sun. So there was nothing to be done except spend the night at the hotel in the town and start as early as possible the next morning. The long-haired youth, Larry by name, drove us to the hotel in his old Ford, and agreed to take us out to the shooting-lodge the following morning. At dinner a most amusing commercial traveller from Dublin sat at our table, and gave us a lot of information about the part of the country we were going to. He also told us a story of an Englishman whom he had met some years before in the south of Cork, and we prayed that This Englishman took a large tract of shooting in one of the wildest parts of the South of Ireland-a part of Ireland, our friend the commercial assured us, where there had been no game preservation for years past, and every bog used to be shot by two or three different local sportsmen every day during the snipe season,-and arrived with two brace of grandlooking English setters. The result of the first day's shooting was one snipe. The Englishman, being of a practical turn of mind, on the way back to the hotel in the evening, made up his mind to return to England the next day, and started to reckon up the cost of his trip. What between the rent of the shooting, hotel and travelling expenses, the amount came to £100. Turning to the gillie, who was trudging behind him carrying the one and only snipe, he remarked: "Well, Pat, that snipe cost me £100." "Begorra, yer honour," replied the gillie, "it's lucky you didn't shoot any more." The next morning I was roused from a heavy sleep by violent knocking at my bedroom door, followed by the entrance of the hotel "boots," Pat, in his shirt sleeves, who seemed anxious to know when I would be after getting up, adding inconsequently that it was a fine saft morning. Not quite understanding what my getting up had to do with the 66 as it was a fine day, we determined to have a look at the town and also buy some provisions. It was market-day, and the little town was full of country people, buying provisions and selling eggs and butter. In the main street we saw what is a familiar sight in England, some men engaged in digging up a gas or water main in the middle of the roadway. Stopping to see what they were doing, we found that one man was digging while two more smoked and looked on, occasionally giving the digger helpful advice. While standing there we were joined by a horsey-looking man, who remarked with a grin that it always took two Irishmen to watch one working. Ah, well," a well," replied one of the watchers like a flash, "there's five of us "boots," I told him so, and he retired. About a quarter of an hour afterwards the same programme was repeated, with the additional information this time from Pat, that the hotel was so "thronged" the night before that Maria (presumably the chambermaid) had been obliged to use the tablecloth from the coffee-room as the top sheet of my bed, and that two bagmen, who had to leave by the early train, were after shouting for their breakfast. At the same time I could hear heavy breathing outside the door, and an agitated voice (apparently Maria's) said: Hurry up, Pat, there's thim divils yowling for their breakfasts agin." I quickly handed the tablecloth to Pat, a large red hand gripped it round the door, and I could hear a "Lord save us!" from Maria as she dashed off to appease the now infuriated bagmen. Shortly afterwards, escorted by Maria, I proceeded to the bathroom, to find that, though there was plenty of boiling hot water, there was not a drop of cold. Maria was full of apologies, and said that the lad who pumped had gone to early Mass, and if I would wait a while there would be plenty of cold water as soon as he returned; but as it was getting late I determined to do without a bath. During breakfast word was brought us from Larry that he would not be able to start before twelve, owing to engine trouble; so after breakfast, VOL. CCX.-NO. MCCLXXII. now." Nothing daunted, our horsey friend walked on down the main street with us, doubtless trying to find out who we were and what our business was. At the corner of a street we passed an old woman seated on the kerb, selling fish in a basket. "Well, ma'am," says our friend to the old woman, "is them young whales yer selling?" Ah, no, agra," answered the old fisherwoman, "they're just little cods like yerself." Apparently this retort was too much for our horsey friend, as we saw him no more. 66 We were struck by the civility and good manners of the 8 2 |