There cannot be any doubt that with the ever-growing trade and passenger traffic between Europe and America, both Cork and Queenstown must be benefitted. Even if an American packet station were established at Galway, it would hardly interfere seriously with Queenstown or Cork, for harbours like the Cove are too scarce on the coasts of Europe, and the trade between Europe and America is too great and increasing too fast to leave Loch Mahon[17] in the slightest danger of being deserted. As long as ships navigate the Atlantic they must enter it. Nothing but the establishment of aërial traffic between Europe and America can ever leave the Cove of Cork shipless. The country round Cork is very fine, and there are many splendid and well-kept gentlemen's seats in its suburbs. It would be hard to find any city more picturesque in its situation, although built very nearly at the mouth of a river. It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so for pleasant walking. But this hillyness makes it all the more picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful city, and--surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is, nevertheless, a fine city, and on account of its magnificent harbour, it has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it. The antiquities of Cork have almost entirely disappeared. It suffered so much from the Northmen and was so often plundered and burned by them that it is not to be wondered at that so few of its ancient monuments exist. It had a fine round tower, of which nothing is left but the foundation. It was, presumably, the Northmen who destroyed it. Every vestige of the old church founded by St Finnbar has disappeared long ago. The fact that Cork was so often plundered by the Danes and other Northmen shows that it must have been an important place, at least in the matter of churches and monasteries. The Danes knew that wherever the largest religious establishments were the most wealth was. This is proved by history and annals telling us that Armagh, Kildare, Cork, Glendaloch, Downpatrick, Clonmacnois, and other important religious centres, were most frequently plundered by them. Just in proportion to the importance of a place in an ecclesiastical point of view, the more frequently it was plundered by the Danes. When they began their attacks on Ireland, they seem to have known, as well as the Irish themselves, where the principal wealth of the country would be found.