put a board on 'em." We have often seen an ass passing our window carrying a corpse, wound about with some old remnant of a blanket or sheet; and thus, flung across its back, a father or mother, wife or husband, was carried to the grave. Sometimes, when the corpse was a little child, or it might be more than one, they were put into a couple of baskets, and thus balanced upon the sides of the ass, this melancholy hearse proceeded on without a friend to follow it, but the one who was guiding the beast. These burials tell more of the paralysing effects of famine than anything else can do ; for the Irish in all ages, have been celebrated for their attention to the interment of their dead, sparing no expense.
When I stood in the burying-ground in that parish, I saw the brown silken hair of a young girl, waving gently through a little cleft of stones, that lay loosely upon her young breast. They had not room to put her beneath the surface, but slightly, and a little green grass was pulled and spread over, and then covered with stones. I never shall forget it.
"The blast of the desert comes,
Her loose hair flew on the wind."
In some parts the soil was manured with the slain. When the famine first commenced, efforts were made to procure coffins; but the distress became so great to the living, that every penny that could be procured must be given for food; and the famished relatives, at last, were grateful if some hand stronger
