The bleak and barren hills of Mayo, the dreary tracts of mountain and morass, were about as unworthy representatives of the boasted beauty and fertility, as were the half-clad wretches who flocked around us of that warlike people of whom we had heard so much. Where were the chivalrous chieftains with their clans behind them? Where the thousands gathering around a national standard? Where that high-souled patriotism, content to risk fortune, station--all, in the conflict for national independence? A rabble led on by a few reckless debauchees, and two or three disreputable or degraded priests, were our only allies; and even these refused to be guided by our counsels, or swayed by our authority. I half-suspected Serazin was right when he said, "Let the Directory send thirty thousand men, and make it a French province; but let us not fight an enemy to give the victory to the 'sans culottes.'" As we neared the pass of Burnageeragh, I turned one last look on the town of Castlebar, around which, at little intervals of space, the watch-fires of our pickets were blazing; all the rest of the place was in darkness. It was a strange and a thrilling thought to think that there, hundreds of miles from their home, without one link that could connect them to it, lay a little army in the midst of an enemy's country, calm, self-possessed, and determined. How many, thought I, are destined to leave it? How many will bring back to our dear France the memory of this unhappy struggle? CHAPTER XXV. A PASSING VISIT TO KILLALA. I found a very pleasant party assembled around the Bishop's breakfast-table at Killala. The Bishop and his family were all there, with Charost and his staff, and some three or four other officers from Ballina. Nothing could be less constrained, more easy, or more agreeable, than the tone of intimacy which in a few days had grown up between them. A cordial good feeling seemed to prevail on every subject, and even the reserve, which might be thought natural on the momentous events then happening, was exchanged for a most candid and frank discussion of all that was going forward, which I must own astonished as much as it gratified me. The march on Castlebar, the choice of the mountain-road, which led past the position occupied by the Royalists, the attack and capture of the artillery, had all to be related by me for the edification of such as were not conversant with French; and I could observe that however discomfited by the conduct of the militia, they fully relied on the regiments of the line and the artillery. It was amusing, too, to see with what pleasure they listened to all our disparagement of the Irish volunteers. Every instance we gave of insubordination or disobedience delighted them, while our own blundering attempts to manage the people, the absurd mistakes we fell into, and the endless misconceptions of their character and habits, actually convulsed them with laughter.