In about nine hours—we were promised by a lying advertisement it should be six—we had crossed the channel, over smooth water, and were making our way, between green shores almost without a tree, up the bay, at the bottom of which stands, or rather lies, for its site is low, the town of Belfast. We had yet enough of daylight left to explore a part at least of the city. "It looks like Albany," said my companion, and really the place bears some resemblance to the streets of Albany which are situated near the river, nor is it without an appearance of commercial activity. The people of Belfast, you know, are of Scotch origin, with some infusion of the original race of Ireland. I heard English spoken with a Scotch accent, but I was obliged to own that the severity of the Scottish physiognomy had been softened by the migration and the mingling of breeds. I presented one of my letters of introduction, and met with so cordial a reception, that I could not but regret the necessity of leaving Belfast the next morning. At an early hour the next day we were in our seats on the outside of the mail-coach. We passed through a well-cultivated country, interspersed with towns which had an appearance of activity and thrift. The dwellings of the cottagers looked more comfortable than those of the same class in Scotland, and we were struck with the good looks of the people, men and women, whom we passed in great numbers going to their work. At length, having traversed the county of Down, we entered Lowth, when an immediate change was visible. We were among wretched and dirty hovels, squalid-looking men and women, and ragged children—the stature of the people seemed dwarfed by the poverty in which they have so long lived, and the jet-black hair and broad faces which I saw around me, instead of the light hair and oval countenances so general a few miles back, showed me that I was among the pure Celtic race. Shortly after entering the county of Lowth, and close on the confines of Armagh, perhaps partly within it, we traversed, near the village of Jonesborough, a valley full of the habitations of peat-diggers. Its aspect was most remarkable, the barren hills that inclose it were dark with heath and gorse and with ledges of brown rock, and their lower declivities, as well as the level of the valley, black with peat, which had been cut from the ground and laid in rows. The men were at work with spades cutting it from the soil, and the women were pressing the water from the portions thus separated, and exposing it to the air to dry. Their dwellings were of the most wretched kind, low windowless hovels, no higher than the heaps of peat, with swarms of dirty children around them. It is the property of peat earth to absorb a large quantity of water, and to part with it slowly. The springs, therefore, in a region abounding with peat make no brooks; the water passes into the spongy soil and remains there, forming morasses even on the slopes of the hills.