CHAPTER XXVII
THE BRIDGE OF THE GIANTS
There is no busier place in Derry than the stretch of quays along the river, and one may see ships there not only from England and Belgium and France, but from Australia and Argentina and India and Brazil. The river is wide and deep, with the channel carefully marked by a line of buoys extending clear out into Lough Foyle; but there are no better facilities here for shipping than at any one of half a dozen ports along the western coast, all of which are silent and deserted. For a port is of no use unless there is something to ship out of it in exchange for the things which are shipped in, or money to pay for them—and there is neither in the west of Ireland.
And, just as there is no more dismal sight than a line of deserted quays, so there is no more interesting sight than a line of busy ones, and we loitered for a long time, next morning, along those of Derry, on our way to the Midland station, on the other side of the river. There is a big iron bridge across the river just above the quays, but that seemed a long way around, so when we came to a sign-board announcing a ferry we stopped. My first thought was that the ferry-boat was on the other side; then I perceived a small motor-propelled skiff moored beside the quay, and one of the two men in it asked me if we were looking for the ferry, and I said yes, and he said that that was it.
So we clambered down into the boat and started off; and I scarcely think that that trip paid, for we were the only passengers, and the river is wide, and gasolene is expensive, and somebody had to pay the men their wages—and the fare is only a penny.
The part of the town which lies east of the river is industrial and unattractive. There are some big distilleries there, and a lot of mills and a fish-market, and row upon row of dingy dwellings; but the biggest building of all is the workhouse—one point, at least, in which the towns of the north resemble those of the south. There is another point, too—the jail, without which no Irish town is complete. Derry has one of which it is very proud—the latest word in jails, in fact—a great, circular affair, with the cells arranged in so-called "panoptic" galleries, that is in such a fashion that the guards stationed in the centre of the jailyard can see into all of them.
But we had crossed the river not to see the town which lay beyond it, but to take train for Portrush, and we were soon rolling northward close beside the bank of the river, with a splendid view of "The Maiden on her hill, boys," on the opposite shore, dominated by the cathedral tower and Walker's white monument. Just before the river begins to widen into the lough, the train passes the ruins of an old castle of the O'Dohertys, standing on a point which juts out into the water—a castle which saw rather more than its share of siege and sally; for this is Culmore, which was always the first point of attack when any expedition advanced against Derry.
Beyond it the water widens, and on the farther shore, which is Inishowen, there are pretty villas, standing in luxuriant woods—the homes of some of Derry's wealthy citizens. Then the train turned inland across a stretch of country so flat and carefully cultivated that it might have been Holland; and then the hills began to crowd closer and closer to the shore, until the train was running along its very edge, under precipitous crags, past grotesque pinnacles of white chalk or black basalt, and fantastic caverns worn in the cliffs by the century-long action of the waves. For that stretch of blue water stretching away to the north, so calm and beautiful, was the Atlantic, and it thunders in upon this coast, sometimes, with a fury even the rocks cannot withstand.