DESCRIPTION OF BOTH.

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position in the occupant, would inevitably capsize it; and yet in this frail vessel she sate in perfect security, a couple of hand-lines coiled at her feet, and the bottom of the curragh overspread with the produce of her fishery. Without the romance of Scott's beautiful boatwoman, there was something more than interesting, in the air and look of this wild islander. Free from that timidity which might be expected in the inhabitant of a remote coast, in her first introduction to strangers of a different grade in society, she laughed and jested with the boatmen; and the play of her merry hazel eye, and the smile which disclosed a row of pure and even teeth, had really more in them to captivate, than the cold and regular charms of many a high-born beauty.

;

“We must embark singly," said my cousin your curragh is but a crank concern. Mind how you step in, Frank." But I had already determined against an embarkation, and accordingly declined the honour of being first adventurer. My timidity only excited the mirth of the sea-nymph, and unwilling to be laughed at by a woman, I took courage, and cautiously committed my person to the skiff; a change of position was of course necessary on the lady's part, and this she managed with such adroit

entriline deary: the vite vas timing to THE TOLL-Ue ong and vine i nien fátiated as the suas f the sea.

vii chife and bolder beatins in gorous relief. No scene of earth could be more peaceful romantic.

I was indiging in delicious reverie, when something like a bird fitted hastly by again, and there was a beary plump in the water. I koked up,—a wild unearthly-looking creature stood on the cliff above, in the very act of Launching a huge stone at me! Just then, a female figure rose beside him, and with threats and blows drove him from the rock. It was my fair friend of the curragh, who seeing me take the lonely path I did, hastened after to warn me of the danger. She told me that the

assailant was a dangerous lunatic; he was treacherous beyond description, and his antipathy to women and strangers was remarkable. Many accidents had occurred from his savage disposition. He feared men, and rarely attacked them; but if he saw a female at a distance from the village, he would lurk with malignant perseverance for hours behind a bank or cliff to attack her unawares. Some of the island women had narrowly escaped death from this truculent monster, and few of the males but had at some time or other suffered injury from his hands; a stone was his favourite missile, which he threw with wonderful force and precision. To my inquiry Why this dangerous being was not removed to some asylum?" my protectress replied with a smile, "He was but a poor natural, after all ; he was born in the island, and, God forbid they should send him among strangers." On conversing with my cousin afterwards, he told me that in the west of Ireland, the peasantry had a superstitious veneration for idiots and madmen, and, like the Turks, believed that insanity and inspiration were only synonymes.

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The illicit whiskey made in this island, holds a first rank in the estimation of the poteen fancier. The cause of its superior excellency may arise from the insular situation of the place,