I might write would seem as _nihil ad rem_, as if I were writing of
an island in the Pacific. I remember a very vivid impression that
occurred to me on first landing at Kingstown, and accompanied me
during the whole of my stay in the island, to the effect, that the
striking differences in everything that fell under my observation from
what I had left behind me at Holyhead, were fully as great as any that
had excited my interest when first landing in France.

One of my first visits was to my brother's chief. He was a master of
foxhounds and hunted the country. And I well remember my astonishment,
when the door of this gentleman's residence was opened to me by an
extremely dirty and slatternly bare-footed and bare-legged girl. I
found him to be a very friendly and hospitable good fellow, and his
wife and her sister very pleasant women. I found too that my brother
stood high in his good graces by virtue of simply having taken the
whole work and affairs of the postal district on his own shoulders.
The rejected of St. Martin's-le-Grand was already a very valuable and
capable officer.

My brother gave me the choice of a run to the Killeries, or to
Killarney. We could not manage both. I chose the former, and a most
enjoyable trip we had. He could not leave his work to go with me, but
was to join me subsequently, I forget where, in the west. Meantime
he gave me a letter to a bachelor friend of his at Clifden. This
gentleman immediately asked me to dinner, and he and I dined
_tête-à-tête._ Nevertheless, he thought it necessary to apologise for
the appearance of a very fine John Dory on the table, saying, that he
had been himself to the market to get a turbot for me, but that he had
been asked half-a-crown for a not very large one, and really he could
not give such absurd prices as that!