Captain Cuellar's Adventures in Connaught & Ulster A.D. 1588.: To Which Is Added an Introduction and Complete Translation of Captain Cuellar's Narrative of the Spanish Armada and His Adventures in IrelandAllingham, Hugh
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Captain Cuellar's Adventures in Connaught & Ulster A.D. 1588.: To Which Is Added an Introduction and Complete Translation of Captain Cuellar's Narrative of the Spanish Armada and His Adventures in Ireland
Allingham, Hugh
Armada, 1588
The custom of these savages is to live as the brute beasts among the
mountains, which are very rugged in that part of Ireland where we lost
ourselves. They live in huts made of straw. The men are all large
bodied, and of handsome features and limbs; and as active as the
roe-deer.[41] They do not eat oftener than once a day, and this is at
night; and that which they usually eat is butter with oaten bread. They
drink sour milk, for they have no other drink; they don't drink water,
although it is the best in the world. On feast days they eat some flesh
half-cooked, without bread or salt, as that is their custom. They clothe
themselves, according to their habit, with tight trousers[42] and short
loose coats[43] of very coarse goat's hair.[44] They cover themselves
with blankets,[45] and wear their hair down to their eyes. They are
great walkers, and inured to toil. They carry on perpetual war with the
English, who here keep garrison for the Queen, from whom they defend
themselves, and do not let them enter their territory, which is subject
to inundation, and marshy. That district extends for more than forty
leagues in length and breadth. The chief inclination of these people is
to be robbers, and to plunder each other; so that no day passes without
a call to arms among them. For the people in one village becoming aware
that in another there are cattle, or other effects, they immediately
come armed in the night, and "go[46] Santiago" [attack], and kill one
another; and the English from the garrisons, getting to know who had
taken, and robbed, most cattle, then come down upon them, and carry away
the plunder. They have, therefore, no other remedy but to withdraw
themselves to the mountains, with their women and cattle; for they
possess no other property, nor more moveables nor clothing. They sleep
upon the ground, on rushes, newly cut and full of water and ice.
The most of the women are very beautiful, but badly[47] dressed [got
up]. They do not wear more than a chemise, and a blanket, with which
they cover themselves, and a linen cloth, much doubled, over the head,
and tied in front. They are great workers and housekeepers, after their
fashion. These people call themselves Christains. Mass is said among
them, and regulated according to the orders of the Church of Rome. The
great majority of their churches, monasteries, and hermitages, have been
demolished by the hands of the English, who are in garrison, and of
those natives who have joined them, and are as bad as they. In short, in
this kingdom there is neither justice nor right, and everyone does what
he pleases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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