Left Manor Hamilton on the long car for Sligo. The long car is the unworthy successor of the defunct mail coach of blessed memory. It is an exaggerated jaunting car arranged on the wheels and axles of a lumber waggon and it is drawn by a span sometimes; in this case, by four horses. A female was waving her hands and shouting incoherent blessings after us as we started. It might be for me or it might be for the land agent, who sat on the same side. I smiled by way of willingness to accept it, for it is better to have a blessing slung after one than a curse or a big stone. Our road skirted Benbo (the hill of cattle), sacred now to rabbits and hares and any other small game that can shelter on its bald sides. Up hill and down hill, between hills and around hills, mountains of every shape and degree of bareness and baldness looking down at us over one another's shoulders as we drove along. An ambitious little peasant clung on behind with his hands, his little bare feet thudding on the smooth road and over the loose layer of sharp stones that lay edge upwards in places. He thought he was taking a ride. We passed small fields of reclaimed bog, where ragged men were planting potatoes in narrow ridges. We passed the brown fields where nothing will be planted; passed the small donkeys with their big loads; passed green meadows on a small scale; in places here and there, passed the houses, dark, damp and unwholesome, where these people live. After we had rumbled on for some miles, enjoying blinks of cold sunshine, enduring heavy scudding showers, the landscape began to soften considerably. The grass grew green instead of olive, and trees clustered along the road. Umbrageous sycamores, claiming kindred with our maples, began to stand along the road singly and in clusters. We were still in a valley bounded by mountains, but the hill-sides waved with dark green and light green foliage, where the fir stretched upward tall plumes and the larch shook downward tasseled streamers. The green of the fields became greener and richer, the dark sterile moss-covered mountains retreated and frowned at us from the distance; we were leaving the hungry hills of north Leitrim for the pleasant valleys that lie smiling around Sligo. The trees grew larger, the sycamores massed together in their full leafiness, bringing visions of a sugar bush in the time of leaves; they were mingled with the delicious green of the newly-leaved beech. The round-headed chestnuts, with their clustered leaves, were covered with tall spikes of blossom like the tapers on an overgrown Christmas tree. The ash and oak are shaking out their leaves tardily; the orchards are white with the bridal bloom of May. The fields are flocked with myriads of happy eyed daisies, the ditch backs glowing with golden blossoms. My eyes make me wealthy with looking at beauty.