United States or Egypt ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The town of Skull is built upon a piece of low level ground, a short distance from which, in the direction of Ballydehob, there is a chain of hills, the highest of which, Mount Gabriel, rises 1,300 feet above the sea level. Nothing can be happier or more accurate than the poet's description of this scenery, when he writes:
Scarlet, who was with the "Mercury" and "Gipsey" delivering provisions in the neighbourhood of Skull, on his return to Cork, writes, on the 8th of March, to his admiral, Sir Hugh Pigot, in these terms: "After discharging our cargoes in the boats to Ballydehob, we went on shore, and on passing through the town we went into the ruins of a house, and there were two women lying dead, and two, all but dead, lying along with them.
He questioned him about the Mary Janes and Old Friendships, about the West Corks and the Ballydehob Branch, about sundry other railways and canals, and finally about the Limehouse bridge; and then again he asked his former question. 'And now, said he, 'will you tell the jury whether you are a stock-jobber or no? 'It is all a matter of opinion, said Undy.
There is an ample supply of provisions at each place." How did they manage to die of starvation at Skull? one is tempted to ask. Yet they did, and at Ballydehob too, the other town of the parish; for, three weeks after the announcement of the "ample supply of provisions," the following news reaches us from the latter place, on the most reliable authority. A naval officer, Mr.
"The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles, The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles." A correspondent of the Southern Reporter, writing from Ballydehob during the first days of January, gives the most piteous account of that village; every house he entered exhibited the same characteristics, no clothing, no food, starvation in the looks of young and old.
The line in question was the Great West Cork, which was to run from Skibbereen to Bantry, and the momentous question now hotly debated before the Railway Board was on the moot point of a branch to Ballydehob.
And then in the evening, on this evening and other evenings, on all evenings, they talked over the prospects of the West Cork and Ballydehob branch, and of the Limehouse Bridge, which according to Undy's theory is destined to work quite a revolution in the East-end circles of the metropolis. Undy had noble ideas about this bridge.
"I am aware, sir, that at the present time you are in many ways like a highly-tightened fiddle, which any breeze frets into murmurings. Now, being absolutely certain of the devotion of your beloved, you naturally " "By the ten lame pipers of Ballydehob," I shouted, "let go of that talk. I can't be having it. I warn ye.
Alaric winced, and wished in his heart that Clementina Jaquetanape, nee Golightly, with all her money, was buried deep in the bogs of Ballydehob. Though he was a rogue, he could not yet bear his roguery with comfort to himself. It sat, however, as easy on Undy as though he had been to the manner born.
The Ballydehob branch line had received the sanction of Parliament through the means which the crafty Undy had so well understood how to use; but from some cause hitherto not sufficiently fathomed, the shares had continued to be depressed in value in spite of that desirable event.
Word Of The Day