Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/124

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
118
ANNALS OF THE

ing winter season. A box of clothing was in my possession, and with this and a little money, I resolved to go to the western coast, in Connaught. I went, and Connaught will long live in my memory, for there are still scenes of sufferings, of cruelty, and of patience, which no other people yet have shown to the world. That people who from the time of the invasion have been "hunted and peeled," treated as the "offscouring of all things," driven into "dens and caves of the earth," as the only shelter, now still live, to hold out to the world that lineament of the "image of God," which is, and which must be the everlasting rebuke of their persecutors; which says in the face and eyes of all mankind, to their spoilers—"You have hated me, you have robbed me, you have shorn me of my beauty; and now, while famine is eating up my strength, gnawing my vitals, you are turning me into the storm, without food, or even "sheep-skins or goat-skins" for a covering; and then tauntingly saying, "Wherein have we robbed you?"

I took the train at Dublin, for twenty-five miles, then a coach to Tuam, where I tarried one night. This is the residence of Bishop M'Hale, and a somewhat respectable old town; but the picture of sorrow was here too, and the next morning I gladly proceeded to Newport. It rained hard, we were on an open car, and the wretchedness of the country made it altogether a dismal ride. When we had reached a few miles of the town, a dissipated, tattered, and repulsive looking man was seated before me on the car, which was not a little an-