with weeds; and all the ancient grandeur, which once was here displayed, reminds one of the old blasted fortunes of a hunter, who had exhausted his wine-casks, drunk the last health, and sounded the last horn over these broad lakes, and now tattered and slip-shod, was recounting his hunting valor in some shebeen house, where whisky, pipes, and song enliven the present, and put out all light of the past. The declining sun warned my friends that they must return; leaving me to walk, or sit upon a stone, while waiting for the coach that was to take me to Castlebar. I saw the last wave of the hands of the kind young ladies and flirting of the handkerchiefs of the little Kellys, as they whirled around the point which took me from their sight. It was not a mawkish sentimentality that made me feel like giving up the coming lonely hours to an indulgence of weeping. I was alone, in a land of strangers, amid famine, pestilence, and death, going I scarcely knew where, and could not expect to find another Ballina before me; and the last few weeks served to heighten the contrast of what had been suffered, and what must rationally be expected to await me. The coach came, and shut me in, and no more was seen till Castlebar was reached. Here was a town that had tasted deeply the cup of woe; she had a splendid poorhouse, and it lacked no inmates, yet the streets were filled with beggars. Many beautiful scats of respectable families are about the town, some in tolerable vigor, and some giving the last look upon former grandeur. Some interesting facts are recorded of this old assize town.
