“My charm (returned I) in some degree, certainly partakes of your religious and national superstitions; for since it was presented me by _your_ hand, I could almost believe that its very essence has been changed by a touch!” And I drew from my breast the withered remains of my once blooming rose. At that moment the priest joined us; and though Glorvina was silent, I felt the pressure of her arm more heavily on mine, and saw her pass the drawbridge without a recollection on her part that it was to have been the boundary of her walk. We had not, however, proceeded many paces, when the most wildly mournful sounds I ever heard rose on the air, and slowly died away. “Hark! (said Glorvina) some one is going to ‘_that bourne from whence no traveller returns_.’” As she spoke a hundred voices seemed to ascend to the skies; and as they subsided, a fainter strain lingered on the air, as though this truly savage choral sympathy was reduced to a recitative, chaunted by female voices. All that I had heard of the _Irish howl_, or funeral song, now rushed to my recollection; and turning at that moment the angle of the mountain of Inismore, I perceived a procession advancing towards a little cemetery, which lay by a narrow pathway to the left of the road. The body, in a plain deal coffin, covered with a white shirt, was carried by four men, immediately preceded by several old women covered in their mantles, and who sung at intervals in a wild and rapid tone. * Before them walked a number of young persons of both sexes, each couple holding by a white handkerchief, and strewing flowers along the path. An elderly woman, with eyes overflown with tears, dishevelled hair, and distracted mien, followed the body, uttering many passionate exclamations in Irish; and the procession was filled up by upwards of three hundred people; the recitative of the female choristers relieved at intervals by the combined howlings of the whole body. In one of the pauses of this dreadful death-chorus, I expressed to Glorvina my surprise at the multitude which attended the funeral of a peasant, while we stood on a bank as they passed us. * Speaking of the ancient Irish funeral, Mr. Walker observes;--“Women, whose voices recommended them, were taken from the lower classes of life, and instructed in music, and cursios, or eligiac measure, that they might assist in heightening the melancholy which that ceremony was calculated to inspire. This custom prevailed among the Hebrews, from whom it is not improbable we had it immediately.” Dr. Campbell is of opinion that the Ululate or hullalor of the choral burden of the Caoine, and the Greek word of the same import, have a strong affinity to each other.--Phil. Sur. South of Ireland, Letters 2, 3.