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 protection, as forty men were staying in the house, and there was an astonishing paucity of the softer sex; indeed in all my subsequent travels I met with an undue and rather disagreeable preponderance of the lords of the creation."

Not being inclined to sit in the "parlour" with a very motley company, I accompanied the hostess into the kitchen, and sat by the fire upon a chopping-block, the most luxurious seat in the apartment. Two shoe-less Irish girls were my other companions, and one of them hearing that I was from England, inquired if I were acquainted with "one Mike Donovan, of Skibbereen!" The landlady's daughter was also there, a little, sharp-visaged, precocious torment of three years old, who spilt my ink and lost my thimble; and then, coming up to me, said, "Well, stranger, I guess you're kinder tired." She very unceremoniously detached my watch from my chain, and, looking at it quite with the eye of a connoisseur, "guessed it must have cost a pretty high figure"! After she had filled my purse with ink, for which misdemeanour her mother offered no apology, I looked into the tea-room which presented the curious spectacle of forty men, including a number of ship-carpenters of highly respectable appearance, taking tea in the silent, business-like way in which Transatlantic meals are generally despatched. My own meal, which the landlady evidently intended should be a very luxurious one, consisted of stewed tea, sweetened with molasses, soft cheese instead of butter, and dark rye-bread.

The inn was so full that my hostess said she could not give me a bed—rather an unwelcome announcement to a