Skibbereen. Eleven miles from Castlebar opened a bright spot of taste—a glebe-house and tidy new chapel, which this indefatigable curate had built, in spite of all poverty. In the chapel were a few half-dead children huddled upon the floor, some around the altar, with their writing-books upon the steps for desks, without table or benches. These the curate had gathered among the starving, for the sake of the black bread, which kept them barely alive. The neighborhood abounds in novelties, strange and romantic, but most of them must be passed over, to leave room for details of the people. This indefatigable man had caused a fever shed to be erected, on a bog bordering upon the Lake of Musk, where pure air is circulating, and a snug cottage stands near, in which the matron who keeps the hospital resides. Thirty invalids were here, mostly sick from the effects of hunger, with swollen legs, many of them past all hope. Far away from any inhabitant, this hospital, cottage, and their inmates stood, struggling to keep up the dying flame of life, only to suffer fresh and hopeless troubles. Solitary as this region everywhere is, it was once celebrated ground. That day's excursion to me was full of strange scenes and strange anecdotes. Here stood the stone raised in memory of the death of John, the "priest killer ;" here is the site of an ancient abbey, but twelve feet wide; here, on the borders of the lake, is an anvil belonging to a forge, which is of such weight that it has never been raised from the bed into which it has sunk, and where it is supposed to have lain for centuries.
