Queenstown makes a brave appearance from the deck of a ship in the bay, even before sunrise. It lies along a steep slope, with green fields and forests on either side, and the most conspicuous building is a beautiful gothic cathedral, with an unfinished tower, that was commenced in 1868 and has cost nearly a million dollars already. The hill is so steep that a heavy retaining wall has been built as a buttress to make the cathedral foundations secure, and the worshipers must climb a winding road or a sharp stairway to reach it. A little farther along the hillside is an imposing marine hospital and group of barracks, from which we could hear the bugles sounding "reveille" as we landed. There are compensations to those who are marooned at Queenstown before daylight, and one of them is the picturesque surroundings of the ancient homes of the O'Mahony's, who ruled this part of Ireland for many generations long ago. The harbor is like an amphitheatre, entirely inclosed by hills, three hundred or four hundred feet high, that are covered with frowning battlements. Every hilltop is strongly fortified. The bay, which is four miles long and about two miles wide, contains several islands, upon which the government has built warehouses, repair shops, shipyards, and the other appurtenances of a naval station, guarded by Fort Carlisle, Fort Camden, and other modern fortresses. Upon Haulbowline Island is a depot for ammunition and other ordnance stores, and the pilot told me that on Rocky Island near by were two magazines--great chambers chiseled out of the living rock by Irish convicts who were formerly confined there--and that each of them contained twenty-five thousand barrels of powder belonging to the British navy. Queenstown has many handsome estates overlooking the sea and the bay from the hills that inclose the harbor. There is an old ruined castle at Monkstown that was built in 1636 by Anastasia Gould, wife of John Archdecken, while her husband was at sea. She determined that she would surprise him when he returned home. So she hired a lot of men to build a castle with only the material they found on the estate, and made an agreement with them that they should buy the food and clothing necessary for their families from herself alone. It is the first record of a "company store" that I know of. When the castle was finished and the accounts were balanced it was found that the cost of the labor had been entirely paid for by the profits of this thrifty woman's mercantile transactions, with the sum of four pence as a balance to her credit. Her husband returned in due time and was so delighted with his new home that he never went to sea again. His estimable wife died in 1689, and was buried in the churchyard of Team-pulloen-Bryn, where this story is inscribed with her epitaph.