The Belfast man proved an awkward customer. He said, "You're too busy to fight anybody just now, you Nationalists. Wait till you've settled your differences, wait till you've cut each other's throats, wait till you've fought over the plunder, like the Kilkenny cats, till there's nothing left of you but the tail. Then we'll send down an army of owld women with besoms to sweep ye into the Atlantic. 'Twill be the first bath your Army of Independence ever got. 'Twill cool their courage and clean their hides at the same time." The small Separatist was about to make an angry reply, when I interposed with an inquiry as to his estimate of Mr. Gladstone. "Ah," said the little man, with a pucker of his little nose, and a grand gesture of contempt, "sure he's not worth as much powdher as would blow him to hell." His sentiment lacks novelty, but I quote him for the picturesqueness of his style. Salthill, May 18th. No. 24.--THE ARAN ISLANDS. The Aran Islanders seem to have passed most of their time in a state of chronic starvation. The land seems to grow little but rock, and the burning of seaweed, the kelp trade, does not seem to have helped them much. True, the Atlantic was all before them, where to choose, but what Father Mahony would call the teeming treasures of the deep were practically left untouched. If we accept the plain meaning of the good priest's speech, we must believe that the Aran Islanders and Irish fishermen generally preferred to starve rather than to catch fish, unless an Irish Parliament were fixed on College Green. They had no objection to accept charitable aid, no matter from what quarter it came, and the Araners required assistance every other year. They were not unwilling to catch fish, but they had nothing to catch them with; and, strange as it may seem, these islanders, who could scarcely move five yards in any direction without falling into the sea, these amphibious Irishmen, did not know the art of catching fish! They tinkered and slopped around the shoals in the vicinity of the island, but they were never able to catch enough fish to keep themselves from starvation, much less to supply the Dublin and London markets. Their boats were the most primitive affairs imaginable, and showed the Irish spirit of conservatism to perfection. These coraghs are practically the same boat as the Welsh coracle, but much larger. Those I examined were from ten to fifteen feet long and three feet wide. Oak ribs, over which are nailed laths of white deal, two inches wide and half an inch thick. Cover this slight skeleton with tarred canvas, and the ship is nearly complete. It only needs two pairs of wooden thole-pins, and two pairs of oars, long, light, and thin, coming nearly to a point at the water-end, having a perforated block which works on the thole-pins before-mentioned. You want no keel, no helm, no mast. Stay! You need a board or two for seats for the oarsmen. With these frail cockleshells