For a farmer to get on here he must be able to buy manure. The crop on a farm has to pay rent, which is high, and taxes, which are heavy, even if no guard for somebody has to be paid for, or no malicious outrage is levied for on the county in compensation, and manure, which, if got before paying, is charged, I am told, twenty-five percent additional for waiting; all this must be met before the support of the family can be thought of beyond merely existing. The more one looks at the want of the people, the more one becomes bewildered with the perplexities of the situation, and the more hopeless about the setting of things right by the Land Bill or anything else. It is pleasant to hear on all sides praises of Lord Ardilaun as a high- spirited, generous man. The slight difference of opinion between him and his people is blamed on the fact of his not being able to understand how poor the tenants are, or how what is little in his eyes may be life or death to them. There was some trouble, I believe, about the building of a causeway across to some sacred island, which was built by the people without leave asked, or in spite of prohibition given; but in the main I think that Lord Ardilaun is very much loved. How it does rain in this green land. I think it rained every day of the days I remained at Cong except the blink of sunshine that shone on the castle and grounds the day that I went over part of the Ashford _demesne_. At Cong, for the first time in my life, I heard the Irish lament or caoine for the dead. Some one was brought in from the country to be buried in the Abbey of Cong. It was a simple country funeral. The dead was borne on one of the carts of the country, followed by the neighbors, and accompanied by the parish priest of Cong. The day was very wet even for Ireland. After the burial service was over the women, kneeling by the new made grave, among the rank wet grass, and the dripping ivy, raised the caoine. It was a most unearthly sound, sweet like singing, sad like crying, rising up among the ruined towers, and clinging ivy and floating up heavenwards. I believe the stories of banshees must have arisen from the sound of the caoine. These mourning women were very skilful, I was told, and were relations of the dead whom they mourned, and whose good qualities mingled with their love and grief rose in wailing cry and floated weirdly over the ruins and up to the clouds.