Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/325

 1573-]' STATE OF IRELAND. 305 terprise. A few years before, Sir Henry Sidney's pro- gress through Ulster had been gravely compared to Alexander's journey into Bactria. The central plains of Australia, the untrodden jungles of Borneo, or the- still vacant spaces in our maps of Africa, alone now on the globe's surface represent districts as unknown and mysterious as the north-east angle of Ireland in the reign of the great foundress of the modern British Em- pire. The wolves still roamed in the forests. In. the plots or charts which began to be made, the seas are peopled with monsters vaster than the northern serpent. Bare-legged chieftains, with mail and battle-axe, stride across Donegal and Londonderry, the Fingals of legend, half believed to have palpable existence. The three southern provinces had been explored with tolerable care ; but Ulster was a desert, heard of only as a battle- ground where the O'Donnells, the O'JSTeils, and the Redshanks had murdered each other from immemorial time. The fortunes of Shan O'Neil had thrown a brief light into its recesses, but only to reveal a life more wild and savage than the most random imagination could have pictured. When Shan was gone, the dark- ness settled down again, and Captain Piers, with his garrison at Knockfergus, and young Smith, who had taken shelter with him, did but hang to the shore like shell-fish, and durst not venture beyond their walls. This was the country which a company of romantic English youths had come to occupy. Sir Peter Carew, scenting a chance of indemnifying himself for his Munster disappointment, gave the expedition the bene- voi* x. 20