Such were the words of terror and despair in which the destruction of the food of a whole people was chronicled; a people who had but just passed through a year of deadly famine; a people still surrounded with starvation--looking forward with earnest and longing expectancy to the new harvest--but, alas! their share of it had melted away in a few short days before their eyes, and, there they were, in their helpless myriads before Europe and the world, before God and man, foodless and famine-stricken, in a land renowned for its fertility, and this, ere the terrible fact could be fully realised by many of their countrymen at home; whilst it was doubted, or only half believed by unsympathizing absentees; who, distant from the scene, are always inclined to think, with a grudging suspicion, that accounts of this kind are either false or vastly exaggerated, to furnish an excuse for withholding rent, or for appealing in some way to their pockets. The failure of 1845 did not prevent the people from planting potatoes very largely in 1846, in which year, according to one account, the quantity of land under potatoes in Ireland, was one million two hundred and thirty seven thousand four hundred and forty one acres; the produce being valued at £15,947,919 sterling;[110] but according to another account it was very much larger, being, as estimated by the Earl of Rosse, two millions one hundred thousand acres, valued at £33,600,000.[111] The great discrepancy between these two accounts arises from there being no authoritative official returns on the subject. The truth, no doubt, lies somewhere between them.