During the famine time a large sum of money was voted, partly by Government, partly from the county taxes, for Relief Works. It was determined to make a canal to connect Lough Corrib and Lough Mask. The canal was made at the expense of much blasting, much building of strong and costly stone work. If they could only have resurrected the famous Irish architect _Gobhan Saer_, he would have advised making a well- cemented bottom for the canal considering that a subterraneous river runs from one lake to the other under it. They did not do this, however, and when the grand canal was finished and the water let on the bottom fell out in places and the waters fell through to their kindred waters. The next famine they will require to dig and blast downward and still downward till they find the underground river and the runaway water. Coming past the costly and well-built bridge which spans the almost dry stream that pours into the leaky canal somewhere, I saw some women round a hollow in the stream that retained a little water. They were rinsing out some woollen stuffs after dying them blue. They had warm petticoats of madder red, and I was glad to see them look so comfortably clad and thrifty. After returning to the hotel I was waited on by an elderly lady of the peasant class, a woman over eighty years of age. She had for sale some pillow lace edging of her own manufacture, which she offered at threepence per yard. This was the way she made her living, paid her rent and kept herself out of the workhouse. The lace was pretty and very strong. She generally succeeds in disposing of it to lady tourists. There were some lady tourists as well as gentlemen staying at Cong. They were on pleasure bent, and had been dreadfully annoyed and disgusted in Galway at the heartbreaking scene attending the departure of some poor Irish emigrants. They are unreasonable in their grief, and take parting as if it were death; but it is as death to many of the aged relatives who will see these faces whom they love no more. I could not help thinking how differently people are constituted. When I saw the streaming eyes, the faces swollen with weeping, and heard the agonized exclamations, the calls upon God for help to bear the parting, for a blessing on the departing, I had to weep with them. These people were all indignation where they were not amused. The old women's cries were ill-bred howlings to their ears, their grief a thing to laugh at. They made fun of their dress--how they were got up--as if their dress was a matter of choice; grew indignant in describing their disgust at the scene. Ah, well, these poor mountain peasants were not their neighbors, they were people to be looked at, laughed at, sneered at, and passed by on the other side; but I--these people are my people and their sorrow moveth me. XLIV. THE ASHFORD DEMESNE--LORD ARDILAUN--LOUGH CORRIB.