Whisperer of nothings in caught Ellen's ear, All but the wealthy prize she held her own; Her mask of fairness, glass to him at last. O, rose-lipped Kate, but what a night was yours, Gazed you in eyes more brightly blessed than Kate's, O, keen-eyed stars, white watchers of the morn, A DAY AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. BY WILLIAM F. PEACOCK. RAIL to Liverpool-steam to Belfast; that's a minute's work on paper! Let's push along to Carrickfergus. A pleasant tramp by the coast, with good scenery; general effect, to brace the nerves and wear the boots. Rail to Ballymena, and put up at Mrs. Reed's Hotel. If you like salmon, now's the time; just feel the weight of this fellow which was swimming a couple of hours ago! Interesting town Ballymena; streets clean and regular, white houses with blue roofs. Allons! we've got the night through, and having breakfasted and discharged the bill, let us proceed to Coleraine. The Causeway is our destination, my friend, and all else is secondary. Still, a few words of our progress.—From Ballymena to Coleraine (you can coach or rail it) the country has many attractions for the stranger, both natural and social. Even the sight of the little water girls whom, during the first seven or eight miles you meet coming from the well with cans balanced by the hoop which encircles the gentle carrier, does you good! There's a tonic in their bright innocent faces and their merry laughter. The true characteristics of North Ireland are beginning to be disclosed. We are soon in an unctuous kingdom of bog and potatoes. Except a superficial half-foot or so where the moisture has evaporated, and a proportionate change of colour occurred, the bog is jet black and very humid. Bog-bog-as far as the eye can reach, nothing but bog; dark, watery, and monotonous. It seems to be laid out in fields," for the labourers cut it down at the edges and leave narrow passages between square and square (Hibernian phalanxes, compact as those of Leonidas). The same order and regularity you find in a brick-croft. Amid the foul and stagnant exhalations (watery, but more like pitchy gas) you see the turf in all its stages. Now it is uncut, undry, coal-black; now you observe Paddy digging it in blocks; these he lays to dry for a time, and then exposes them to the action of fire. Witness the rolling smoke-clouds which take their life from these plains, and darken the turf from which they ascend. For about a week said turf is left to dry; then you may see the carts loading, their unsophisticated drivers as merry as the dogs at their side, exchanging broad jokes and grinning from ear to ear. You also see the flax; its tiny blue flower looking very artless and very pretty. In some parts living-in some parts dying; at your right hand it is growing to maturity-at your left burning; its smoke curling up with spiral swelling and convolutions of a waterspout.-Altogether, the road from Ballymena to Coleraine (pronounced Còlren) is flat, stale, and unprofitable. Very different from the country between Ballymoney and Larne, of which presently. In sight of Coleraine now, imagine our old dusty coach driven "full swing" to the Clothmakers' Arms. (Coachee likes to put the steam on when entering any town of importance.) A host of precious youths throng round you, each and all vociferating the praises of "Orr's car" or "Redfern's 'osses." "Here's the mare, yer 'onor;-a divil to go. Jump up, yer 'onor. Ould Ireland can't mend it any way!" These young Emeralders, though prone to cunning talk and exaggeration, very seldom stand to a deliberate lie. There is a great amount of genuine humour amongst these lads. Dickens might pick out more than one Sam Weller. Coleraine is a pretty place. The town itself is small, but exquisitely clean; its houses whitewashed when of brick, and pure in colour when of stone. I don't suppose its population is more than a thousand or fifteen hundred. The Market Hall is a good building, and large for the size of Coleraine; but the main feature is the Bann, seen here to advantage from that excellent bridge which crosses at the northern part of the town. Of the Bann and its salmon I would speak, but let me say a word or so about the place itself, and its conveyances. Coleraine, you must know, is finely situated for those tourists who intend to visit the Causeway. You can take the long road to Port Stewart, through a noble country, where the rail is laid and the guard's whistle sounds loud and clear; or you may start to Bush Mills, a charming spot, where salmon are counted by thousands; or you may follow my example and go to Port Rush, which lies seven miles N.E. The generality of people take Irish cars, and go direct to the Causeway Hotel; but those who have little luggage, and great love of scenery, will just "tramp" to the little village last named. The road is excellent and the scenery picturesque; you have occasional views of the coast, and Lough Neagh is apparent at times-looking black and cheerless in the distance. To return to the Bann and its associations. It rises to the east of Newry, flows into Lough Neagh by the northern shore, and out again by the north-west, with many a roar and leap. The lough is many miles in circumference; three rivers empty themselves into it, yet the Bann is the only stream that escapes. Having, then, to convey so much water to the North Sea, and in its course sweeping through Lough Beg, you may imagine with what thunder it rolls onward through a channel beset with rocks innumerable. After running about seventy miles it reaches Coleraine, and is there calm and serene, as though penitent for its long course of discord and contention. From Coleraine to its junction with the North Sea, the distance is four miles. In the neighbourhood of Coleraine Bridge fish abound. The "salmon leaps" are two, and there is therefore little chance of freedom for the fish. It would be easy to describe the means provided against its escape; the weirs of solid stone; the gratings or "traps" which silently receive the victims and retain their coveted selves until the fatal change from water to crushed-ice occurs. From Coleraine to Port Rush we pass through a novel country. The journey from Ballymena formerly opened out a world of bog, but now it is not so. Certainly the characteristic of Ireland is still somewhat apparent; yet, if you judged Ireland from what you now sec, its main feature would by no means be bog. Some hundreds of yards before you arrive at Port Rush, an unexpected and charming view presents itself. A break in the road reveals to you the rolling waters of the North Sea, with the little pier of the town, and the cliffs of Port Rush below you. Your prospect is extensive; by mounting the side road, you can see perhaps thirty miles Derry-way, and to your right, the coast to the extent of several leagues. From Port Rush, the tourist takes a boat "to the Causeway." But, in truth, the Causeway Proper is not seen. Where it commences, there you get out, and, landing on the rocks, pursue a winding path to the excellent hotel on the cliffs. But we have not yet arrived, and I have to jot down a note or two regarding the scenery. A trip of nine miles, by water and by such a coast, cannot fail to possess some attractions. Fairly on your way, you lay back and think a little. "Home" and its associations press into memory; and the silence of the waters, so unbroken, save by the regular "dip, dip" of the oars, is an excellent assistant to reflection. Possibly you recall, too, a coast whose scenery was similar; and, looking over the stern, you imagine in the green sea some old and well-remembered face now dead to you "a thing O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wings." But the charm is broken. You hear an unexpected splash, and are made acquainted with a porpoise which rolls its burly form along in a manner strongly remindful of Sam Johnson, and then disappears "full fathom five." It is useless again to court quiet dreams; so, with an effort, like that of young Copperfield, when he strove to speak gruffly, you fall into chat with the boatmen. From them you derive certain bits of information; as that the sea-fishing here is farmed by a Mr. Black, who pays £400 per annum for the right. And in your subsequent rambles from the Causeway to Carrickfergus, you are forcibly struck with the notion that Mr. Black possibly makes a goodish thing of it; for in every town through which you pass, coast salmon await the carrier, nicely packed up in wicker baskets, strewn with ice and secured with straw. Your boatmen point out in the distance a shapeless, indistinct mass; it is Rathlin Island. "A bad place," says one;" sure there's two wracks lying on the beach at this moment." Still on, through the dancing water, its waves glittering in the sunlight and looking like blended amethysts and gold. Fine fishing here. "Wish we'd some hand-lines," says one rower, as he spits into his horny fist and grasps the oar anew. We are breast to breast with the White Rocks. They stretch out some distance, rising from the shore to a considerable height; bulwarks of limestone. White they are, and contrast remarkably with the black cliffs farther east, which join the pale ones with great abruptness. This phenomenon is not the result of waves or sea-breeze; if you dug twenty feet into the respective cliffs, you would find the respective tints of either rock still preserved. But these White Rocks are truly curious. The shapes they assume often astonish and always delight. I have seen several curious natural rocks, yet none to supersede these, in variety at least. Walking from Carnarvon to Beddgelert, in North Wales, a rock lies by the highroad, which is called " William Pitt's Head." It presents, on a gigantic scale, an exact portrait, in bold relief, of that Chancellor of the Exchequer who raised and calmed the troubled spirit of the Mutiny at Spithead eyes, nose, mouth, every feature is detectable, yet never a sculptor's chisel has had a hand in it. But these rocks on the PortRush coast have equal recommendations. In succession you row past the "Priest's Cave," a singularly formed cavern, with its legend not wanting, and possessing two entrances; then "Jackson's Cave," with its legend; and, by the way, it is from this spot that the finest and most delicate gravel is obtained; "The Parliament House," a square chamber dignified with its legend, too; and then you see "Lot's wife." Not that pillar which travellers tell you stood, to within a recent date, on the shore of Lake Asphaltes; not that remarkable ossification of feminine gender which, being measured, was pronounced thirty feet high; but a rock, standing detached from the cliff, and in general contour not unlike a female figure. Even while you gaze on her, two fisher lads approach the beach, and when you lazily ask the boatmen "what those fellows are after?" "A-going to see Lot's wife!" one answers, with a horse-laugh. Still coasting the White Rocks, we arrive at "The Pulpit," a half-dome in the cliff, not unlike one of those ancient pulpits from which our sturdy reformers spake in words of thunder; but though concave, its figure has some resemblance to a Gothic window; and as you look, you think that the half of a pear would, if inverted, furnish the true form of this pulpit of Nature. What is this? Nobly situated on the high cliff, stands a time-worn castle-the ruin of Dunluce. A cave in the rocks seems to penetrate to its very vitals; indeed, between the castle interior and the castle cave a communication still exists. Black, frowning ruin! What tongue shall tell of the deeds that may have occurred in thy precincts?-what pen shall paint the midnight scenes when victims left thy dungeons, and, being conveyed through that subterraneous passage, gave their dying breaths to the bleak sea-breeze, and found rest at last in the ocean-bed? I know not the age of Dunluce, but it is said to be very old. It is one of the finest of those ruined fortresses, of which Ireland contains so many. The keep, or tower, stands on a rocky cliff, separated from the mainland by a chasm several hundred feet deep, and all around, except on one side, are beetling crags, that might safely defy the quickest eye and surest foot, and against those black grim rocks, the sea, roiling in one unbroken swell from icy regions of the pole, beats with an everlasting roar; and in stormy winter weather, when roused by a north-west gale, it often flings its spray, as if in mockery of man and his works, upon the grass-grown floor of the ancient hall. The walls are still nearly all standing. Hall and kitchen, and courtyard, tower and battlement, are still distinctly marked; the stone stairs, in some of the towers, being still perfect. Like old Nuremberg, its walls are wreathed about with "Memories of the Middle Ages." VOL. II. B We row past Dunluce, and the Black Rocks begin. "Ah," says one man in the boat, in contradiction to the truth, "once these rocks were white. Everything was made clean at the Creation, but Time has cast his shadow on their surfaces." "A shabby trick, by Saint Patrick!" says the "bowoar." Port Roon Cave; the sea high, and boatmen unwilling to enter. Our boat gets into broken water, and for the next ten minutes we are in danger, the sea splashes in, and our chaps at the oar are not at all sanguine; but at last we get out, and ride on the rolling waters, now poised on a giant wave, and now sweeping down into the valley, down, down; to be again mounted on the climbing billows. The coast scenery continues to furnish delight, and the buildings in the neighbourhood of the cliffs are not unnoticed. Some of the gentlemen's seats are finely constructed, and their situation sets them off to the best advantage. But let us suppose the boatmen to have fulfilled their charge. We are at the Causeway Landing, and it is necessary to climb the cliff's before you can get a sight of the hotel to which, in the first instance, appetite prompts. On the beach stands that old guide M'Mullin, who proffers his hand to assist you in stepping ashore. He will be happy, as he says, "to show your gentleman's honour the 'otel, an' maybe in the mornin' your honour would be so obligingly kind as to employ him as guide." An honest, decent, old fellow is M'Mullin. He has the Irish blarney on his tongue; but his actions are sincere, and he faithfully fulfils his trust. For about thirty years he has been the ciceroné of tourists and visitors, and is a remarkable compound of truth and fiction. His legends, and the homely way in which he recites them, cannot fail to give pleasure; and it is a notable truth that in the old man's observations you will find great and keen good sense, and no contemptible amount of knowledge. He was the guide of Sir Humphrey Davy, who visited these parts, of Jones the geologist, and of many others. Basalt exists in several quarters of the world. In America and Asia we find it, wholesale, and in Europe. Where the Missouri rolls, and in the Deccan, you discover it. Nealer home, in England, Scotland, and (peculiarly) in the sister Isle. You may trace a curious similarity between the basaltic columns of Mexico and those of the Giant's Stack, County Antrim. Basalt withstands many tests, but is fusible, and therefore of volcanic origin. That there was a period when some tremendous convulsion threw up this Giant's Causeway is considered certain by geologists. The principal or grand causeway (there being several considerable and scattered fragments of a similar nature), consists of an irregular arrangement of many hundred thousands of columns, formed of a black rock, nearly as hard as marble. The greater part of them are pentagonal, but so closely and compactly situated on their sides, though perfectly distinct from top to bottom, that scarcely anything can be introduced between them. These columns are of an unequal height and breadth; several of the most elevated, visible above the surface of the strand, and at the foot of the impending angular precipice, are of the height of about twenty feet, which they do not exceed, at least not any of the principal arrangement. How deeply they are fixed in the strand, has never yet been ascertained. This grand arrangement extends nearly two hundred yards, as it is visible at low water; but how far beyond is uncertain; from its declining appearance, however, at low water, it is probable that it does not reach beneath the water to a distance equal to that which is seen above. breadth of the principal Causeway, which runs out in one continued range The |