Now in Glengariff suffering is not permitted to be seen. The hotels are magnificent, the servants well-clothed and well fed, and it is so arranged that the people in rags are seldom seen in that vicinity.
But two miles across the bay and you may see all the misery you can endure. I had been over there and had gone through a dozen or more cabins, and on my return I expressed myself to the lady in as strong terms as my command of language permitted.
“Are you not exaggerating?” asked she. “I have never seen such misery as you describe. It cannot be.”
“Because you have never sought it out. But it is there. Fifteen minutes in a boat will take you to it. Will you go over now, and see for yourself if I have exaggerated?”
She went. It was a lovely morning; the waters were smiling, and the Glengariff shore, with its beautiful buildings, its long hedges of fuchsias along the winding street, the background a mountain of flowers, was a fairy scene. From this side the mountains on the opposite in the delicate brown of Autumn, were beautiful. Distance showed you only the beauties of Nature; it mercifully hid the squalid poverty the mountains contained.
THE CONVERSION OF AN IRISH LADY.
We landed and began the ascent. The land was, as everywhere, bog and rock, with here and there a spot reclaimed, which smiled in green. We approached one of the regular hovels.
“How far have we to go before we come to one of the houses you spoke of?”
“We are at one now.”
The woman stood petrified.