Along the road, tramp, tramp, off the road through the bogs, every house called at seeming worse than the last. A rumor had been running along before us--ever before us--of an Amazonian army with pitchforks, tongs and the hooks used for drawing the sea weed ashore, armed and ready, some three hundred strong, waiting for the police. We never came up to this army or caught a sight of their rags. Crossing a field we were told of a merciful lady, a Mrs. Major Jones, who gave them seed potatoes and trusted them with meal when they had nothing to eat. As the police halted before some houses we heard the muttered exclamations of the few women near, "Eagh! eagh! oh, Lord, and them in need of charity!" Well, we never came up with the army of women. The processes were not all served, for some of the houses were empty, and there was no one on whom to serve them; we turned our steps, or our horses rather, homeward to Ballina, the boys calling out in compliment to America, "Three cheers for the noble lady," as we drove off. The threatened rain came on and came down heavily and we got our share of it before we got under shelter. An elderly gentleman was introduced to me at Ballina who had had a very great opportunity of noticing the working of the law and the struggles of the people. He admitted to me that some might possibly have paid some rent before the agitation began, but kept it back hoping for a permanent reduction, and then when they had it by them had used it for living, and now had nothing to meet the rent with. He said, however, that the most part had not recovered from the effects of the scarcity sufficiently to be able to pay up arrears-- or, indeed, to pay anything on arrears. We conversed a little about peasant proprietorship. He instanced the case of two persons who had become owners of church land, one of eight acres, another of sixteen. He spoke of the prosperity that had crowned their labors ever since hope came to them and they had something to struggle for. He said they came now decently clad to church and market. He had been in their houses and noticed as much as two flitches of bacon hanging in the chimney. One of them owned a team of horses. A man with a team of horses on his farm is in a different position from a man with only an ass and creels. Absolutely, said he, the man has devoted a portion of his land to apple trees. It was a touching thing to see the earnestness with which this man spoke of these great evidences of prosperity--horses to work the farm, two flitches of bacon and planting apple trees. In Mayo, in two instances, I have seen a corner left untilled in a field. As there was an ass in one, and a goat browsing in the other, I do not know but what it was the best thing they could do to leave them untilled.