Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/115

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FAMINE IN IRELAND
109

ing hold of its contiguous one to save it from falling. I was glad, quite glad to get away, for had my foot stumbled or slipped, some dark deep gulf might have placed me beyond help or hope. Ossian might have made his bed among these caves, when he says—

"As two dark streams from high, rocks meet and mix."

Rain hurried us to our dinner, and poured upon us, during the ride of eight miles, in darkness, to the cottage of Dungloe. A little incident occurred this evening, which happily testified to a remark made by Mr. Forster, in a letter to a committee, during the famine. Speaking of the starving poor, he says, "They are suffering most patiently, and in this parish, where there are ten thousand souls, not one single outrage has ever been committed in the memory of man."

Mrs. Forster and myself in our retreat and hurry had neglected to shut the hall door; in the morning it was quite open and the hall floor covered with water. "What a dangerous condition," I said, "is this, to leave a house at night, especially in a time of hunger, as the present." "Not in the least," was the answer; "I should not be afraid to leave every door unlocked at night, and every window open, with food or any other property in reach; not the least iota would be touched by one of them." This was self-discipline, which can scarcely be reconciled with hunger in any stomachs but the Irish.

A letter from Mrs. Griffith, in the spring of 1849, says, that the people of Arranmore had recovered their