Page:Glossary of words in use in Cornwall.djvu/136

 INTRODUCTION. V the two sides of Belfast Lough. It included the town of Belfast, which was at first English, hut, like Londonderry, hecame Scotti- cised, owing to the preponderance of North Britons in the rural districts on both sides. Pressing on by Lisbum and to the east bank of Lough Neagh, the English settlers cover eleven parishes in Antrim alone, all of which preserve to this hour their English characteristics; and crossing still further, over Down to Armagh, they stopped only at the base of the Pomeroy mountains in Tyrone. Thus, from the tides of the channel to beyond the centre of Ulster, there was an unbroken line of English settlers, as distinct from Scotch; and the district which they inhabit is still that of the apple, the elm, and the sycamore — of large farms and two-storied slated houses. The Scotch settlers entered at the two points which lie opposite to their own country — ^namely, at the _ ^ Giant's Causeway, which is opposed to the Mull of Cantyre on one side, and at Donaghadee which is opposed to the Mull of Galloway on the other. Two centuries and a half ago Ireland was to them what Canada, Australia, and the United States have been to the redundant population of our own times." In another paper Canon Hume particularizes still further the lines of Scottish immigration : — " The Scotch entered Down by Bangor and Donaghadee, and pushed inland by Comber, Saintfield, and Ballynahinch, to Dromara and Dromore ; while in Antrim they proceeded by Islandmagee, Bally- clare, Antrim, and Ballymena, surrounding the highlands and reaching the sea again by Bushmills and the Causeway, In 1633 and 1634 the emigrants from Scotland by way of Ayrshire, walked in companies of a hundred or more &om Aberdeen or Inverness-shires, and were about 500 per annum, mostly males, and many of them discontented farm-servants." Canon Hume thus describes how the native inhabitants of the forfeited lands met this tide of immigration : — '' The Irish or natives, broken and conquered, reduced also in number by war, famine, and disease, occupied when possible strong positions. They still regarded as specially their own the land which was least accessible, or least desirable, and fled to the hills and morasses. It is curious to see how popular language has embodied these facts in such expressions