nations, however, bordering upon the sea, even in their rudest state, know how to procure this necessary preparation by the evaporation of sea-water, and such was the mode adopted in many parts of Ireland until a very recent period; and the sea-water was, strange to say, carried inland to saltpans, for the purpose of boiling and evaporation. There does not appear any evidence to show that the Irish preserved their beef either with salt, or by drying, or any other curing process; but an expression occurs in some of the early writings, and particularly in a description of some of the olden feasts, which leaves no doubt as to the circumstance of bacon, or salted pig, having been used at a very early period. In the "Leabhar na g-Ceart' we read of the tribute of the King of Ui Fiachrach being "a hundred beeves and a hundred heavy tinnes." lancy supposed that the word meant sheep; but in this he was proved by modern commentators to be decidedly wrong. Dr. O'Donovan says the word is explained bacun, bacon, in the book of Leacan, and Muc Saillti, a salted pig, in a glossary in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, and translated lardum by Colgan, in his version of Brogan's metrical life of St. Bridget. These two authorities appear to settle the point. Val In Murcheartach's "Circuit of Ireland," in 942, we find that the Danes supplied the hero, on his march to Dublin, with bacon (saill) in abundance. And in another place we read— "And hogs were sent to our camp By the hospitable chiefs of Ossory." And by the Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, to which reference has been made, we find that the King of Emania was entitled, even in the palace of Tara, to— "Three score beeves, twenty pigs, Twenty handfuls of leeks, methinks, Relating the diet of the "meere Irish," Stanihurst writes, "No meat they fancie so much as porke, and the fatter the better. One of John O'Neil's household demanded of his fellow whether beefe was better than porke. That, quoth the other, is as intricat a question as to aske whether thou are better than O'Neil." In that curious old tract, "A Brefe Description of Ireland, made in the Year 1589, by Robert Payne, unto XXV of his Partners," we learn a good deal about the produce of this country, the markets, and price of provisions. "A barrel of wheate, or a barrel of bay-salt, containing three bushels and a-half, Winchester measure, is sold there (in Ireland) for 4s. ; malt, peas, or beans, for 2s. 4d.; barley, for 2s. 4d.; oats, for 20d. ; a fresh salmon, worth in London 10s., for 6d.; twentyfour herrings or six mackerels, six sea bream, a fat hen, thirty eggs, a fat pigge, one pound of butter, or two gallons of new milk, for a penny; a reede dear without the skin, for 2s. 6d.; a fat beefe, for 13s. 2d.; a fat mutton, for 18d. There be great store of wild swannes, cranes, pheasants, partriges, heathcocks, plowers, green and gray curlews, woodcocks, rayles, and quails, and all other fowls, much more plentiful than in England. You may buy a dozen of quails for 3d.; a dozen of woodcocks, for 4d.; and all other fowles rateable; oysters, muskels, cockels, and lamphire, about the sea coasts, are to be had for the gathering great plentie." Upon the influence which the pig has exercised on our Irish cottier and small farmer it is unnecessary to dilate; and of the effect which the potato failure produced on this description of stock, reference has been already made in the first chapter. In 1841, our pigs were numbered at 1,412,813; in 1847, they had fallen so low as 622,459; in 1851, they had risen again to as many as 1,084,857; but in the following year there was a decrease of 12,199.† Whether we ever can have the same amount of swine without the cabin and the potato, is problematical. With pork and bacon as edibles, we shall have to deal when we come to the Feasts of the Irish, both ancient and modern. "The Circuit of Ireland, by Muircheartach Mac Neil, Prior of Aileach," a poem, written in the year DCCCCXLII., by Cormacean Eigeas, chief poet of the north of Ireland. Published by the Archaelogical Society. See returns of agricultural produce in Ireland. and he took what they offered him. Do you do the same." M'Clure accepted the omen, went back, and volunteered to join the expedition, then setting out under command of Sir George Back. This was the twelfth expedition undertaken since the year 1819, for the discovery of the north-west passage, that frozen phantom which had been haunting the minds of navigators and commercial men for centuries. Within the limits of 2340 from the shores of the known continent to the pole, the problem was to be solved. To search an area of the earth's surface, above 8,000 miles in extent, yet untrodden beyond the arctic circle; to find the icy sea, and plough a channel through it from one great ocean to the other; or discover the fair and beautiful land, the Polynia, which the Russians dream lies beyond the eternal ice barrier, up at the extreme Polar limit ;-these were objects that might well kindle the imagination, and inspire daring hearts with courage sufficient to make them brave all the terrible desolation and unknown horrors of the icy zone. During a long course of years, science and daring had advanced far upon the frozen regions, baptising cape, and bay, and headland, with names that in themselves are histories of heroism and suffering, unequalled in the annals of human progress, and still each step was a conquest upon the unknown. New seas, new lands revealed themselves to each successive navigator. The grand object indeed was as yet unattained, but every brave man fancied, as he went forth heroically to the ice-world, that perhaps the glory of success might be his. And when M'Clure, at twenty-nine, gave up all the brilliancy and beauty of life for the sunless, silent, frozen region, where nature lies for ever a corpse, covered with a snow shroud, who can tell what starry prescient hope may have lit his mind, that by him the great problem of the centuries would at length be solved. To understand fully the nature of the great achievement of which Captain McClure is the hero, we must take a glance at Arctic history-we must see how ten centuries had vainly dashed against the ice-barrier, which has opened but for him; how the fine brain and intellect of Europe warred ceaselessly for 400 years against the frost giants; and how still the best and bravest of Europe are found in the conflict, some as conquerors, some as martyrs, till you can track the progress of the combat by the memories of dead men in their icy graves. From the earliest times, seafaring nations had tried to penetrate the mysteries of the Atlantic. The old Norse Vikings, as early as the ninth century, reached Iceland, where the Irish, it is said, had even preceded them; and a century later, Eric of Iceland, the first arctic navigator, "set forth westward to search for other lands." These Scandinavians, from their wild sea rovings, brought back tales of lofty islands walled with glaciers, and others so fair, they named them Green-land, and Vin-land; but this land of grapes has never since revealed itself, though searched for subsequently in all directions, from Labrador to the Azores. Wandering mariners, too, in these northern latitudes, spoke of the strange barrier, "neither earth, air, nor sky, but all three, through which it was impossible to penetrate." Here, in this unknown ocean, tradition and fable had placed their marvels-the island of St. Brenda, only visible at peculiar times and to favoured eyes; and that other strange island of gloom and mystery, five days' sail from the Orkneys, to which the souls of the dead were ferried over at midnight, according to the belief of the fishermen along the wild seacoast of western Ireland. Here also Plato placed his Atlantis, and Strabo prognosticated that one or more worlds might be found there, inhabited by races different from the old continent; and still as the prescience of discovery haunted the human mind, all the great nations of antiquity came in turn, and gazed from the Pillars of Hercules upon the mare tenebrosum, whose waters, they believed, connected Europe with eastern Asia. Two paths to India were indicated by tradition and science-the north-west by the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland (that tried by the Vikings of Scandinavia); and the south-west, by the Canaries and Azores, tried by the maritimal Phoenicians. But no great and serious measures towards oceanic discovery were undertaken till the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese took the lead in adventure; their object being to effect a passage to India by Africa, in order to rival Italy, at that time carrying on her trade by the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Then the beautiful ocean islands were first revealed to Europe, and |