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In a little while, however I realised the capacity of the curagh to raise its head among the waves, and the motion became strangely exhilarating. Even, I thought, if we were dropped into the blue chasm of the waves, this death, with the fresh sea saltness in one's teeth, would be better than most deaths one is likely to meet.
He shook hands with them readily enough, but with no smile of recognition. He is said to be dying. Yesterday a Sunday three young men rowed me over to Inisheer, the south island of the group. The stern of the curagh was occupied, so I was put in the bow with my head on a level with the gunnel.
The air was full of luminous sunshine from the early morning, and it was almost a summer's day when I set sail at noon with Michael and two other men who had come over for me in a curagh. The wind was in our favour, so the sail was put up and Michael sat in the stem to steer with an oar while I rowed with the others.
A little crowd of neighbours had collected lower down to see me off, and as we crossed the sandhills we had to shout to each other to be heard above the wind. The crew carried down the curagh and then stood under the lee of the pier tying on their hats with strings and drawing on their oilskins.
It was a four-oared curagh, and I was given the last seat so as to leave the stern for the man who was steering with an oar, worked at right angles to the others by an extra thole-pin in the stern gunnel. When we had gone about a hundred yards they ran up a bit of a sail in the bow and the pace became extraordinarily rapid.
A good many fishermen came down to see the start, and long after the curagh was out of sight I stood and talked with them in Irish, as I was anxious to compare their language and temperament with what I knew of the other island. The language seems to be identical, though some of these men speak rather more distinctly than any Irish speakers I have yet heard.
It was a grey day, with a curious silence on the sea and sky and no sign of life anywhere, except the sail of one curagh or niavogue, as they are called here that was sailing in from the islands. Now and then a cart passed me filled with old people and children, who saluted me in Irish; then I turned back myself.
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