The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland by Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall
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page 26 of 342 (07%)
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Everything was dripping. In many places the waters were out, and the
low-lying lands were in a flood. Potatoes in pits linger in the fields, turnips and cabbages in the rows where they grew, bearing witness that even the last hard winter was many degrees behind the winters of Canada. The land on this road is not so good as what I left behind; therefore there were few gentlemen's houses, and the small farmhouses wore the usual poverty-stricken and neglected appearance. There were more waste hillsides devoted to whins, and flat fields tussocked with rushes as we swept on through the dripping country, under the sides of almost perpendicular rocks, down which little waterfalls, like spun silver, fell and broadened into bridal veils ere they reached the bottom. Then along the historical Foyle, "whose swelling waters," rather muddy at this season of the year, "roll northward to the main," and so following its windings and curvings we flashed into Derry. VI. THE HILLS OF LOUGH SWILLY--TENANTS' IMPROVEMENTS--A MAN-OF-WAR AND MEN OF LOVE--THE PIG--RAMELTON--INTELLIGENT ROOKS--FROM POTATOES AND MILK TO CORNMEAL STIRABOUT AND NOTHING--MILFORD--THE LATE LORD LEITRIM'S INJUSTICE AND INHUMANITY--ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH. On the 14th March we left Derry by train, crossing from the banks of the Foyle to Lough Swilly. Got on board a little steamer, marvellously like an American puffer, and panted and throbbed across the waters of the Lough. The sun shone pleasantly, the sky was blue, which deserves to be |
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