The port is hardly less depressing. Admirable as a shelter in the days of small vessels, it is unfit for these days when even coasting traffic comes in ships of three thousand tons. It is true they have a dock hollowed out of rock and holding eighteen foot of water; but the Board of Works (a department of Dublin Castle) which executed the work at a cost of forty thousand pounds omitted to notice that there was only twelve foot of water at the entrance: and the accommodation is thought as useful as a second storey with no stair to it. Nearly all the shipping consists in fishing boats: many trawlers, but most numerous of all, the little hookers worked by the fishermen who live across the river in the very odd community called the Claddagh. These people till recently had a "king" of their own (just as happens on the small islands of the coast) and they lived their own life, and indeed still live it, almost wholly distinct from the regular townsfolk. Their thatched cottages scattered in a huddled group without streets or plan of any kind make a curious feature of the place; but it is a curiosity rather than a charm. In the main street of the town lives a jeweller who manufactures still the Claddagh ring which these folk and the Aran people use for marriage or betrothal: joined hands surmounted by a crowned heart make an emblem which needs no posy to expound it. You can get in Galway also another local object which is worth having, the woman's strong cloak of red or blue flannel with hood to shelter the head in the stormiest of weather. Perhaps one of the most interesting sights in the place--at least to the angler--is to be seen from the bridge which spans the main river below the broad weir which holds up water for the sluices and mill powers. Here is a long, swift shallow which in summer becomes crowded with salmon to a degree almost incredible; the fish lie under you there, some twenty feet from your eyes, their sides touching as the dark backs sway in the water, so that at the first glimpse one seems to look into a mass of weed. Anglers can be seen fishing there close together, and many hundreds of fish are killed yearly from the bank. It was here that one enthusiast achieved a fisherman's euthanasia, for he dropped dead suddenly in the very act of playing a fish. The papers gave long accounts of the sad event, recalling the dead man's achievements and qualities as sportsman and citizen; then added a final paragraph-- "Our readers will be glad to learn that the rod which Mr. ---- dropped was immediately taken up by our esteemed townsman Mr. ---- who found the fish still on, and after ten minutes' play, succeeded in landing it--a fine clean-run salmon of fifteen pounds." What more was needed for epitaph? The soul of "Mr. ----" had departed under the most satisfactory auspices.