When I commenced my station, I started from what is called the “Beds,” and God help St. Patrick if he lay upon them: they are sharp stones placed circularly in the earth, with the spike ends of them up, one circle within another; and the manner in which the pilgrim gets as far as the innermost, resembles precisely that in which school-boys enter the “Walls of Troy” upon their slates. I moved away from these upon the sharp stones with which the whole island is surfaced, keeping the chapel, or “Prison,” as it is called, upon my right; then turning, I came round again with a circumbendibus, to the spot from which I set out. During this circuit, as well as I can remember, I repeated fifty-five paters and aves, and five creeds, or five decades; and be it known, that the fifty prayers were offered up to the Virgin Mary, and the odd five to God! I then commenced getting round the eternal beds, during which I repeated, I think, fifteen paters and aves more; and as the bods decreased in circumference, the prayers decreased in length, until a short circuit and three paters and aves finished the last and innermost of these blessed couches. I really forgot how many times each day the prison and these beds are to be surrounded, and how many hundred prayers are to be repeated during the circuit, though each circuit is in fact making the grand tour of the island; but I never shall forget that I was the best part of a July day at it, when the soles of my feet were flayed, and the stones hot enough to broil a beefsteak! When the first day's station was over, it is necessary to say that a little rest would have been agreeable? But no, this would not suit the policy of the place; here it may be truly said that there is no rest for the wicked. The only luxury allowed me was the privilege of feasting upon one of my cakes (having not tasted food that blessed day until then); upon one of my cakes, I say, and a copious supply of the water of the lake, which, to render the repast more agreeable, was made lukewarm! This was to keep my spirits up after the delicate day's labor I had gone through, and to cheer me against the pleasant prospect of a hard night's praying without sleep, which lay in the back ground! But when I saw everyone at this refreshing meal with a good, thick, substantial bannock, and then looked at the immateriality of my own, I could not help reverting to the woman who made them for me, with a degree of vivacity not altogether in unison with the charity of a Christian. The knavish creature defrauded me of one-half of the oatmeal, although I had purchased it myself in Petigo for the occasion; being determined that as I was only to get two meals in the three days, they should be such as a person could fast upon. Never was there a man more bitterly disappointed; for they were not thicker than crown-pieces, and I searched for them in my mouth to no purpose--the only thing like substance I could feel there was the warm water.