We passed a cabin of indescribable wretchedness; a woman who might have sat for a picture of famine stood at the door looking at us as we passed. She had a number of little children, of the raggedest they were, around her. Some time ago the father of these scarecrows was suspected of having stolen some money, and a posse of the much enduring police were sent out to search in the dead of the night. The family were in bed. The bed was a few boards laid on stones, on which was spread a little green hay, and among the loose hay they slept. The terror of the little creatures pulled out of bed, while the wretched lair was searched and they stood on the floor naked and shivering, was described to me by one who assisted at the search. The bed was overturned, but the money was not found. We drove on through the "stony streak" out to a clearer grass country to Castle Bourke, a lonely looking ruin sitting among her own desolations. It once covered a great deal of land, and there is evidence of additions having been made to it at different times. This Castle Bourke was one of the castles of the Queen of the West, the celebrated Grace O'Malley. This castle is one of those given to Grace by her husband of a year, Sir Richard Bourke. There are still the remains of three buildings; one, said to be the prison, was loopholed through the solid stone, some loopholes being quite close to the ground, some straight through, some slanting, so as to cover a man come from what direction he might, or what height soever, even if he crept on the ground. Most of the castle, as well as these buildings attached, had their roof on the floor, but in the square tower of the castle proper still remains a stone staircase of the circular kind. As you go up this stair lit by narrow slits in the wall formed in hewn stone you find an arched door at three different places admitting to three arched galleries roofed and floored with stone. These have their loophole slits to peep out of, or fire out of, stone spouts through which molten lead or boiling water could be poured on the besiegers. In one gallery a trap door let down to an underground passage which came out at the lake some distance off. By this they could send a messenger to raise the O'Malley clans, or by it could escape if necessary. The goats of Mayo are inquisitive, and would persist in climbing the circular stair and exploring the galleries. Whenever they found this secret passage, for pure mischief they fell down and were killed, to the great loss of their owners; so the secret passage is filled up, for which I was very sorry.