I can imagine a congregation, whose piety is equally removed from mean servility and from arrogant conceit; who meet to praise the infinite greatness and love of the Universal Father, and the wonders of his creation—not to bring within the walls consecrated to him the hatred of bigotry and intolerance;—whose creed demands from each man only that degree of belief which his own inward revelation makes possible to him. Before my fancy no longer float separate churches for Jews, and for fifty sorts of Christians; but true temples of God and Man, whose gates at all times stand open to every human being, who when oppressed by the Earthly, seeks to have the Holy and the Heavenly within him, animated and sustained by all the aids and appliances of sense or spirit; or who longs to pour out the overflowings of his heart, when filled with happiness and gratitude.
Galway, Sept. 8th.
We arrived very late on the ‘race-course,’ and saw little of this day’s sport. The sight of the people was however extremely curious and interesting to me. In many points of view this nation is really semi-barbarous. The universal want of decent clothing among the lower classes, even on festivals like the present; their utter inability to resist ardent spirits, so long as they have a penny in their pockets; the sudden and continual wild quarrels and national pitched battles with the shillelah (a murderous sort of stick which every man keeps hidden under his rags), in which hundreds take part in a minute, and do not resist till several are left dead or wounded on the field; the frightful war-whoop which they set up on these occasions; the revenge for an affront or injury, which is cherished and inherited by whole villages:—on the other hand, the light-hearted carelessness which never thinks of the coming day; the heart-felt merriment, forgetful of all want and suffering; the kind hospitality which ungrudgingly shares their last morsel; the unreserved cordiality with the stranger, who makes any advances to them; the natural fluency and eloquence which they have ever at command;—all are characteristics of a half-civilized people.
Hundreds of drunken men accompanied our carriages as we drove from the race-course to the town, and more than ten times, fights arose among them. The confluence of guests was so great that we with difficulty found a miserable lodging:—our dinner was however good and very abundant.
Galway was chiefly built by the Spaniards. Some descendants of the ancient families still exist, as do several very curious houses of that period. It struck me as characteristic, that in a town of forty thousand inhabitants there was not a single bookseller’s shop or circulating library to be found. The suburbs and all the villages through which we passed on our way, were of a kind which I should vainly attempt to liken to any thing ever seen before:—pigsties are palaces in comparison; and I often saw numerous groups of children (for the prolificness of the Irish people seems to keep pace with their wretchedness), naked as they came into the world, roll and paddle about with the ducks in the filthy kennels, with the greatest delight.
Athenrye, Sept. 10th: Morning.
I write to you this morning from the house of one of the sweetest women I ever saw in my life: an African too,—and as she tells me, by birth a Mademoiselle H——. ‘Que dites vous de cela?’ But more of her hereafter. You must now accompany me to the ‘race-course,’ and see the running and leaping from the beginning. It is a remarkable sight of its kind, and exactly suited to a half-savage nation. I confess that it far exceeded my expectations, and kept me in a state of intense anxiety; only one must leave pity and humanity at home, as you will see from what follows.—The race-course is an elongated circle. On the left side is the starting post; opposite to it, on the right, is the goal. Between them, at the opposite points of the circumference, are built walls of stone without mortar, five feet high and two broad. The course, two English miles in length, is run over once and a half. You see then, from my description, that the first wall must be leaped twice, the second only once in each heat. Many horses run, but none is declared winner till he has beaten the others in two heats; so that this is often repeated three, four, or even five times, if a different horse comes in a-head each time. To-day they ran four times; so that the winner, in a space of less than two hours, reckoning the intervals, ran twelve English miles at full speed and leaped the high wall twelve times!—a fatigue which it is difficult to conceive how any horse can stand. Six gentlemen in elegant jockey dresses of coloured silk jackets and caps, leather breeches and top-boots, rode the ‘race.’ I had an excellent hunter belonging to the son of my host, and could, therefore, by crossing the course, keep up perfectly well, and be present at every leap.
It is impossible not to have a favourite on such occasions. Mine, and indeed that of the public, was an extremely beautiful dark bay, called Gamecock, ridden by a gentleman in yellow,—a handsome young man of good family, and a most admirable rider.
After him the horse which pleased me the most was a dark brown mare called Rosina, ridden by a cousin of Captain B——; a bad rider, in sky blue. The third in goodness, in my opinion, Killarney, was a strong, but not very handsome horse, ridden by a young man who showed more power of endurance than perfect horsemanship: his dress was crimson. The fourth gentleman, perhaps the most skilful, though not the strongest of the riders, rode a brown horse, not remarkable in its appearance, and was dressed in brown. The other two deserve no mention, as they were ‘hors du jeu’ from the beginning: they both fell at the first leap; the one sustained a severe injury on the head, the other came off with a slight contusion, but was disabled from riding again. Gamecock, who darted off with such fury that his rider could hardly hold him in, and flew, rather than leapt, over the walls, with incredible bounds, won the first heat with ease. Immediately after him came Rosina without her rider, whom she had thrown, and took the remaining leaps of her own accord with great grace. Gamecock was now so decidedly the favourite that the bets were five to one upon him: but the result was far different from these expectations, and very tragical. After this noble animal had distanced the other two in two successive heats, and had achieved the two first leaps in the most brilliant manner, he set his foot, in the third, on a loose stone which one of the less skilful horses had pushed down as he fell, and which it was not permitted to remove out of the course. He fell backward upon his rider with such violence that both lay motionless, when the other riders came up, took not the slightest notice of them, and accomplished the leap. After a few seconds Gamecock got up, but his rider did not recover his senses. A surgeon present soon pronounced his state to be hopeless; both his breast-bone and skull were fractured. His old father, who stood by when the accident happened, fell senseless on the ground, and his sister threw herself with heart-rending cries on the yet palpitating though unconscious body. But the general sympathy was very slight. After the poor young man had been repeatedly bled, so that he lay on the turf weltering in his blood, he was taken away, and the race began again at the appointed time as if nothing had happened.
The brown rider had been the first in the preceding heat, and hoped to win the last and decisive one. It was what the English call ‘a hard race.’ Both horses and men did their part admirably, they ran and leaped almost in rank. Killarney at last won only by a quarter of a head:—it was necessary therefore to run again. This last contest was of course the most interesting, since one of the two running must of necessity win everything. There was a great deal of betting, which at first was even. Twice did the victory appear decided, and yet at last terminated on the contrary side. At the first leap the horses were together; before they reached the second it was evident that the brown was exhausted, and Killarney gained so much upon him that he reached the second wall more than a hundred paces before him. But here, contrary to all expectations, he refused to leap, and the rider had lost all power over him. Before he could be brought to obey, the brown came up,—made his leap well; and now putting out all his strength, was so much a-head that he seemed sure of winning. Bets were now ten to one. But the last wall was yet to cross, and this was fatal to him. The tired animal, who had exhausted his last remaining strength in fast running, tried the leap willingly enough indeed, but had no longer power to effect it; and half breaking down the wall, he rolled bleeding over and over, burying his rider under him so that it was impossible for him to rise. Killarney’s rider had in the mean time brought his refractory horse into subjection, achieved the two remaining leaps amid the cheers of the multitude, and then rode at a foot pace, perfectly at his ease and without a rival, to the goal. He was so exhausted, however, that he could scarcely speak.