[Not far removed from Staffa is the famous isle of Iona, celebrated as the place where Columba, an Irish sixth century saint, founded a monastery and converted the inhabitants from Druidism to Christianity. The establishment founded by him flourished for centuries, and the ruins of the cathedral and other antique buildings still remain. One of these, “the Reilig Ouran, to the south of St. Oran’s Chapel, was for centuries the ordinary burial-place of the Scottish kings, whose tombs, to the number of forty-eight, form a long and continuous series of oblong narrow stones, laid flat side by side, and bearing scrolls and effigies, but no inscriptions.”]
Tradition has recorded Fergus the Second as the earliest monarch of the line, having been entombed about 420 A.D., and included among the number his successors down to Macbeth; though Macculloch conjectures, from the circumstance of the body of Alexander II., who died at Kerrera, having been conveyed to Melrose for burial, that Iona did not enjoy so great a reputation as the burial-place of kings as it is commonly said to have done in the earlier ages of the Scottish monarchy. However, our conductor, parallel to the royal tombs of Scotland, pointed out to us a similar line, containing eight Norwegian princes or viceroys of the island, during the remote period when that barbarous people exercised sovereignty over the Isles of the Gael. These tombs are chiefly distinguished by the Runic knots and curious representations of vessels rudely sculptured upon the oblong pieces of primitive rock which cover their graves. Adjoining these, a row of four similar stones indicate the graves of as many Irish kings, near to which is said to lie one king of France. Altogether they constitute perhaps the most extensive association of crowned heads in the habitable globe.
[The latter “kings” were perhaps but chiefs, and here, near the royal tombs, are buried most of the insular Highland chieftains, the Macdonalds, the Macleans, and others of ancient days.]
IRELAND AND ITS CAPITAL.
MATTHEW WOODS, M. D.
[Among recent books of travel few have attained more immediate and flattering success than Dr. Woods’s “Rambles of a Physician,” the racy story of a run through Ireland, Britain, and the continent of Europe. The author has keen powers of observation and fluency in description, and has put on record much that other travellers fail to mention. We give his résumé of his run through Ireland and his telling description of what he saw in the people’s quarter of Dublin.]
I have been strolling at leisure through the streets, and find myself at the end of the long twilight perplexed instead of pleased by what I have seen. Why is it so difficult to get at the truth about Ireland? Why is it that, when a man begins to talk about even its beauty, he exaggerates it beyond recognition, and that the very few who do give the plain facts are not believed? Why do I read in a little book that I have just found on the parlor table, and which explains the origin of the name “Emerald Isle,” the following words, paraphrased from a popular history: “The name Emerald Isle is generally supposed to have been derived from the evergreen appearance of her shores, whereas it really originated from the ring which was set with the words ‘Optimo Smaragdo,’ and which Pope Adrian sent to King Henry IV. as the instrument of his investiture with the dominion of the land.” Now, the truth is, Ireland’s shores are not “evergreen;” not green at all, but brown and barren, with occasional patches of bright yellow when the prussach’s in bloom, and bronze when the blossoms fall.
From Queenstown to Cork there is, I admit, a refreshing verdure, especially attractive because of the monotony of the recently-crossed sea, and the houses, too, in this strip, are enveloped in flowers; but this is not because they are in Ireland, but is rather due to their being occupied by English or Scotch or their descendants, who sing thus “the Lord’s song in a strange land.” Yet from Cork to Killarney, by the Prince of Wales route, you rarely see a bit of verdure; not a flower by the roadside, nor in a window, nor the slightest attempt at the beautification of a home, or to make the best of little. For part of the way not a green field, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor a weed, nor a blade of grass, nor the song of a bird, nor the hum of an insect,—nothing, absolutely, but brown, barren desolation, associated with a sort of solitude that but intensifies the gloom. Occasionally a narrow belt of potatoes encircling a cabin, always built without mortar, as there is no sand in Ireland, is the only relief from the depressing waste until you reach Glengariff, where you find the English idea again, which has covered the barren rocks with flowers and fruit, comfortable homes and waving grain, the contrast, indeed, making the most taciturn eloquent in praise. From Glengariff to Killarney the same sterile desolation. Miles and miles without a bit of pleasant vegetation to rest the weary eyes. The district suggesting rather some of the dismal places described by Dante or Virgil, Ariosto, Tasso, or Milton, as the abode of souls condemned, rather than districts occupied by living men.