vast long rampart, the other two gigantic
counterscarps. The immediate approach to Letterkenny, too, from the west
is charming, passing in full view of the extensive and beautiful park
and the large mansion of Colonel Stewart of the Guards, and skirting the
well-kept estate of Mr. Boyd, the owner of the ivy-clad cottages which
so took my fancy the other day.

In the Ulster settlement under King James I. a patent for Letterkenny
was issued to one of the Crawfords. Then, as the records tell us, "Sir
George Marburie dwelt there, and there were forty houses all inhabited
by British tenants. A great market town, and standeth well for the
King's service."

Again we found a fair going on--this time attended by swarms of peddlers
vending old clothes and all sorts of small wares, bread-cartmen, and
tea-vendors. These latter aver that it is easier to sell tea in the
"congested" districts at 4s. 6d. than at 2s. 6d. The people have no test
of its quality but its price!

The town was gay with soldiers and police--whose advent had created such
a demand for bread and meat, a man told us, that all the butchers and
bakers in Letterkenny and Dunfanaghy were at their wits' ends to meet
it. "But they don't complain of that!" We reached Newtown-Stewart by
railway after dark. As we passed Sion the mills were all lighted up,
giving it the look of an English or New England town. A New England
snow-storm, too, awaited us at our journey's end; and, after a wild
drive of several miles through the whirling white mists, it was a
delectable thing to find ourselves welcomed in a hall full of light and
warmth and flowers by merry children and lively dogs, the guard of
honour of the most gracious and charming of hostesses.

BARON'S COURT, _Thursday, Feb. 9._--Among a batch of letters received
this morning I find one from a most estimable and accomplished priest in
the West of Ireland, to whom I wrote from Dublin announcing my intention
of visiting the counties of Clare and Kerry. "I shall be very glad," he
says, "to learn that no evil hath befallen you during your visit to that
solitary plague-spot, where dwell the disgraceful and degraded
'Moonlighters.' Would not 'martial law,' if applied to that particular
spot, suffice to stamp out, these-insensate pests of society?" This
language, strong, but not too strong in view of the hideous murder last
week near Lixnaw of a farmer in the presence of his daughter for the
atrocious crime of taking a farm