OUGHTERARDE is termed the entrance to Connamara, but the boundaries seem somewhat undefined, like the sensations induced by the wildly beautiful scenery,
“The vague emotion of delight
While climbing up some Alpine height.”
Measured and mapped Connamara may be, but painted or described it never can. Those sublime landscapes of mountain, moor, and mere, are photographed on the memory for ever, but cannot be reproduced on canvas; and a great master of art, a Michael Angelo (Tilmarsh) throws down his brush, with the wise confession, “all that we can do is to cry, Beautiful!” Who shall take it up, and paint? Not mine, a prentice hand, to daub a caricature (about as like the original, as a pastile to Vesuvius, or a “cinder-tip” to the Himalayas) of those glorious Irish Alps, of the Maum-Turk mountains, or of Bina Beola, rising, in solemn majesty, amid a sea of golden and roseate flowers. It requires a confidence which I do not feel, to attempt the Hallelujah Chorus on my penny trumpet, or, where Phidias distrusts his chisel, to commence a Colossus with my knife and fork. But I shall never forget our silent happiness, a happiness like childhood's, so complete and pure, as, mile after mile, we watched the sunlight and the shadows, sweeping over hill, and lake, and plain, (so swiftly that every minute the whole view seemed to change), and saw the snow-white goats among the purple heath, and the kine, jet-black and glowing red, knee-deep in the silver waters.
But there are minds no scenery can delight or awe. I remember, how, travelling by rail, one glorious morning in December, the trees all hoar with frost, and glittering against a sky blue as the turquoise, I met a Cockney gent, who condescendingly surveyed the scene, and said that “it reminded him of Storr and Mortimers! The water was very like those plate-glass things, which were used to set off the silver, and the trees a good deal resembled the candelabra clustered above.” And he smiled as one who was pleased to approve the article which Nature humbly submitted to his inspection, and seemed, out of his overflowing goodness, to pat Creation's head. And now, seated upon the box, a “party” from Sheffield insulted that pure delicious atmosphere with very villainous “shag,” and talked as flippantly and without restraint, as though he were in the Chair at “The Cutler's Arms,” presiding over a Free-and-Easy. No sooner did he ascertain from the driver that the grand Highlands before us were known as “The Twelve Pins” than he desired the company to inform him, “what degree of relationship existed between them and the Needles off the Isle of Wight?” a genealogical problem, which would have been received with a due and dignified silence, but for his own unrestrained applause and laughter. Then he favoured us with an enigma, “Why have them pins no pints? Because they're principally composed of quartz!” His geology he had got from a guidebook, out of which he treated us to various extracts, appending commentaries of his own. “Miss Martineau says the hair 'ere” (of course he transplanted every h) “is very like breathing cream. Wonder whether the old gal meant cream of the valley, or milk-punch—ha! ha! ha!”
From this subject he passed very naturally to mountain dew, and the illegal manufacture of whiskey, shouting at the top of his voice, “I cannot help loving thee, Still;” and then singing, “Still, I love thee, Still, I love thee,”—“Fare thee well, and if for ever, Still, for ever fare thee well” (the music by Mr. Joseph Miller), until, happily for us, his pipe went out, and playfully wondering “how he should obtain a light, when all around was matchless,” he collapsed into a state of quiet suction, like a gold fish in a vase.
Incidents, in a country unreclaimed and almost uninhabited, must necessarily be small and infrequent, like the currants on an Irish cake. We had a change of horses at the Half-way House (half-way between Oughterarde and Ballinahinch), and this rapid flight of horsemanship was performed something under the half-hour. I took advantage of the interval to recline on the green sward hard by, and commenced, in dreamy enjoyment, a silent oration to the scenes around. “O Connamara,” I began, “non amarat sed amcena! let me hear and heed thy sermons in stones, though thine own sons be deaf to them.”
Alas! for the sad contrast, where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile! 1 Why should not fields of golden corn, and orchards heavy with fruit, bring plenty from thy fertile plains? Why should rank weeds, rag-wort, and loose strife, (evil signs and sounds!) usurp thy untilled soil, a 'soyle most fertile,' as old Spenser saith, 'fit to yielde all kinde of fruit that shall be committed thereunto?'” And the answer which I heard, “awaking with a start” from my reverie, was a surly grunt close to my ear, and a loud laugh from Frank, who thus perpetuated the tableau vivant:
1 Lord Chesterfield spoke of Ireland as “that country for
which God has done so much, and man so little.”