house I entered the other day, call to her crying child, “ Be silent, or the fox shall catch you." This might appear comical to African mothers, who probably threaten their children with lions; but the fox is the only beast of prey in England which can conquer a child. In Rachery island, they have nothing but rats for this purpose. In Germany, they generally frighten children with the wolf; in some parts of Russia, where the wolf is too common, they use the bear. Thus from rats, or at least from foxes to lions, there is in this respect a curious ascending scale.

The islanders, as I have already said, cultivate some barley and oats; but besides this, one of their principal sources of gain consists in the preparation of kelp from seaweed, which is the occupation of the women and children. Hamilton thus describes their mode of proceeding:-They gather the seaweed from the shore after a storm, or cut it from the rocks on which it grows, and spread it out in the sunshine to dry. In the evening they gather it into little heaps, which are again spread out to dry next day. When the weeds are dry, they make a hole in the ground, line it with stones, and in this extempore oven burn the weeds slowly and carefully to ashes. The vegetable salts melt, and, falling to the bottom of the hole, form a solid mass, in which state it is exported, as they do not understand how to purify the soda from the common salt and other matters mixed with it. This preparation of kelp, as the English call it, is carried on through the entire north-west coast of Ireland, and in a similar manner on the south-western coasts of Scotland, and it forms a not inconsiderable article of trade with England.

What was told me of the manners of the simple inhabitants of this island, brought to my recollection the inhabitants of some of the islands in the Baltic. Thus it is remarkable, that the same trait is related of the Racheries as of the people of Runoe, in the Gulf of Riga, that the greatest punishment that can be inflicted on them is banishment from their island, which they love exceedingly, regarding Ieland as an altogether foreign country.

We have two accounts, by learned men, of the nature of the island of Raghery: one by Dr. W. Hamilton, in his description of the County of Antrim; and one by Dr. J. Drummond, in the xvii. vol. of the Transactions of the Irish Academy. From the first account I take a few remarks that may perhaps be acceptable to most of my German readers, who may not have the book itself at their command. Small as the island is, two races of very different characters may be discovered among its 1100 inhabitants. The island, as I have already said, consists of two points of land, joined at a right angle. The west, or longer end, is called

:

USHET MEN AND KENRAMER MEN.

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"Kenramer," or, in correct Irish, "Ceanramber," i. e. the long end; the other point is called "Ushet." Kenramer is rocky and hilly the little hollows and valleys in it are fertile and well cultivated; but its coast is without a harbour. Ushet, on the other hand, is barren, but more open and accessible, and well supplied with good little havens. The Ushet people are therefore the fishers, sailors, and merchants of the island, who keep up the connexion with the mainland, by a lively traffic with the neighbouring market towns of Scotland and Ireland. These Ushet men also generally speak English, and have lost many of their ancient insular peculiarities. The Kenramer men, on the other hand, live independent and shut out on their end of the island, till their fields, and are active climbers of the cliffs. On the north side of their wing, where the rocks rise out of the sea to a height of 750 feet, a great number of sea-fowls build their nests, the robbing of which is their principal employment. A Kenramer man often goes quite alone, provided merely with a rope, on those birdcatching and egg-collecting expeditions. He makes the rope fast at the edge of the cliff, and lets himself down or draws himself up without assistance, as circumstances may require. As they have less communication with strangers, they have preserved their old customs, and the Irish language, more unaltered than the Ushet men. The difference between these two island races is so evident, and they know it so well themselves, that in hard tasks, where the rock-climbers of Kenramer and the seamen of Ushet are employed together, they point out to each other that post for which he is most fitted as an east or west islander.

As the Isle of Man was formerly an apple of discord between England and Scotland, so was Rathlin between Scotland and Ireland. It often served the Scottish and Irish chieftains as the place of meeting and the sallying point of their expeditions. There are therefore many of those tumuli, such as are found in Ireland and Scotland, on a little plain in the centre of the island, which was probably more than once a blood-soaked battle-field. In the centre of one of these tombs, a stone coffin containing bones has been found, while all round were strewn many other human bones, being probably those of a hero, and the common soldiers he commanded. Bronze swords and lance-heads, likewise dug up in this plain, are irrefutable testimonies of the bloody dramas which were performed here. The recollection of the atrocities perpetrated here on one occasion, by the clan of the Campbells, remained so long in the memory of the island population, that so lately as at the end of the last century, no Scotchman of that name was permitted to settle on the island, and this law is probably in force at

the present moment. Even in the earliest periods of Irish his tory, Rathlin is mentioned as an inhabited island; and in the fifth century the Irish and Scotch apostle, St. Columba, founded a monastery here, which, like so many other pious foundations of the kind in Ireland, flourished for three hundred years, till, at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, the barbarians of the north rushed down and spread themselves over England, Scotland, and Ireland, burying every thing, as in some parts also of France and Germany, and even Italy, in wild destruction, and even swept across the little Rathlin, and laid its pious edifice in ruins.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CAPE FAIR HEAD.

BASALT PLATEAU-FARM OF THE CROSS-LITTLE LAKES-A STORM BEGETS A CALM-STRUCTURE OF THE BASALT MASSES-RATHLIN AS SEEN FROM BENMORE-DYKES IN THE BASALT-THE GRAY MAN'S PATHSUBSTRATUM OF THE BASALT-ITS BRITTLENESS-JACKSTRAWS-THICK POPULATION" THE FOX IS COMING!"-IDEALITY AND REALITY.

The great masses of basalt which lie upon the original chalk bottom of this part of Ireland, here form a high plateau or table, tolerably flat on the summit, to which one gradually ascends from Ballycastle by a winding road. The highest edge of this plateau is turned towards the sea, whence it inclines inland, with a gentle slope, for about half a mile, when it mixes with other heights and risings of the highlands of the county of Antrim. The inclined surface of this plateau is covered far and wide with grass, moss, and moist boggy soil, and affords pasture for the cattle of a couple of little farms. Next the sea, it ends abruptly in a steep cliff, from four to six hundred feet high, and here the naked black basalt is every where visible. The highest point rises to 636 feet above the level of the sea, and is called Cape Benmore. The visitor drives up as far as a little farm, called the Farm of the Cross, which lies in a hollow immediately behind the Head, where the sloping masses mingle with other hills, and where the waters have collected in two little lakes, of which one is called Lough Dhu, or the Black Lake, and the other Lough Nacrana, or the Lake with the Island. At this farm I had to leave my car, and continue the ascent on foot. The farmer, Patrick Jameson, whose cattle graze on the summit of Benmore, and his servant or neighbour, were our guides.

A CALM IN A STORM.

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We first went round the little lakes, one of which, Lough Nacrana, is remarkable for a small island in its centre. The farmers told me that the people say that this island was made by the Druids, and used by them in their religious rites. At all events, at least in its present form, it is the work of art; for it rises in a perfectly regular oval form above the surface of the lake, and seems to be built of fragments of basalt, such as lie in vast numbers round the shore of the lake. I have not been able to find any thing respecting this lake and its artificial island in any book, and am willing to believe that the Druids might have chosen this wild spot for the scene of their religious ceremonies. The little farm is the only thing in this wild place that does not remind one of the superhuman works of nature. As Benmore is mentioned by Ptolemeus (it is his Robogdium Promontorium,) it is a proof that it was known and famed as something extraordinary even before the Christian era.

From the little Druidical temple-lake, we now ascended to the very top of the cape, by extremely unpleasant paths, for one foot always trod in the wet bog, and the other on pointed rocks. The further we went, however, the more convenient and dry became the path, and above, at the edge of the cliff, it was perfectly level and dry. The storm, too, had somewhat impeded us in our ascent; but when we reached the crown of the hill it ceased completely, and became a perfect calm, which did not move a hair of our heads. This calm at first surprised me not a little, till my guide called my attention to the fact, that the wind struck quite against the perpendicular face of the rock, and was turned off broken, and sent upwards, and consequently produced, not a horizontal current of air, but a vertical one towards the sky. The cliff is so perpendicular, and the edge so sharp, and the wind blew so perfectly at right angles against the wall of rock, that the air immediately behind the up-rushing current was quite still. Further up in the air, the vertical current was, of course, again carried along with the storm from the north; and at a distance of from 500 to 600 paces, the wind again swept along the ground; while still further on, at a distance of 700 or 800 paces, its whole force was felt. The current of air therefore flowed in a great arch over our heads, beneath which we enjoyed a perfect calm.

Basalt, it is well known, is found partly in large, thick, compact, and shapeless masses, which, however, break according to certain laws, assuming certain regular forms. Sometimes, however, basalt is also seen in a certain regular and columnal structure. These columns or pillars are generally as close to each other as if they were cemented together. But wherever the mass has been

shattered by violence, or where the basalt is exposed to the air, rain, and other atmospheric influences, these columns are actually seen ranged like pillars. In such places, their joinings open gradually, and the columns are either loosened by time, and fall in long rows, or stand out separated from the walls, or at least show on the surface their outlines somewhat defined by the effects of time. From the completely amorphous basalt masses which have neither an internal concealed, nor an external apparent structure, to those which show themselves in elegant, perfectly regular, and prettily-formed columns, there are many gradations. Sometimes, the columns of which the entire mass is composed are exceedingly large, thick, and rude, and have no regular and easily recognizable form, while they appear neither circular, nor perfectly four, six, or eight-cornered. They bear the same relation to these elegantly-formed basalt columns, as the vast Cyclopean stones used in the chapel at New Grange do to the elegantly hewn, squared, and polished stones, which a refined and highly developed architecture forms, for its buildings, according to the rules of art. The structure of Fair Head is Cyclopean. There are immense perpendicular columns, like vast numbers of gigantic knotted oaks, rudely and grotesquely fitted together. Most of these mighty pillars stand close together, like the stones of a wall; but some have become half or entirely detached from the mass, and stand out from the wall in low relief, in high relief, or completely apart; and the fate of these last is usually to fall, though one is shown to the stranger which is said to have been standing for centuries, quite separate, and ever threatening to fall. This column is, I think, from thirty to thirty-five feet in circumference, and its head is about ten or twelve feet from the edge of the precipice, and at its sides one looks down into clefts seventy feet deep, which grow narrower and narrower towards the bottom, and contain many overturned pillars, like so many wedges.

is

On the summit of Benmore Head, we had the nearest promontory of Rathlin Island, Rue Point, exactly opposite us, at a distance of about four miles. The eastern side of this promontory formed of columnar basalt, like the structure of Benmore Head. Perhaps these two columnar shores were once connected, and were torn asunder by some violent convulsion of nature. The long coast of the western, or Kenramer wing of Rathlin was so clearly visible, that we could see the Church Bay most distinctly, and distinguish the districts of Kenramer and Ushet.

A mountain was shown to us as the site of King Bruce's Castle; and the high chalk cliffs, with their cap of basalt, we saw with such distinctness as to be able to study their structure. I could