amply testifies. That distance
he travelled on foot on the preceding day, after having slept a night
with a drunken man in a brake. He was even more averse than we were to
giving up the struggle, and it was agreed on finally that he should be
allowed to rest in a place of safety; that the messenger who had come
from Mr. Meagher's friend should be despatched with my proposal, and
meantime, that I should betake me to the Comeragh mountains in search of
Mr. Meagher, while our other comrade should make a final effort to rally
the remaining strength of the people. We would then be in a position to
determine finally what we should do. Stephens and myself proceeded
together as far as my former host's in the mountains, where I left him,
and continued my route as far as the Comeraghs, I rested that evening at
a place called Sradavalla, and early next day recommenced my search
around and over the mountains. After crossing several minor hills, I
ascended the summit of the Comeragh, called Cuimshinane, which commands
a prospect of nearly the whole counties of Waterford and Kilkenny, with
a great part of Tipperary. That prospect was at once grand, beautiful
and mournful. The corn crop began to be tinged with coming ripeness; but
the potato was blighted, and presented a spectacle as black and dismal
as the country's hopes. This widespread ruin was the dread work of an
hour. On the morning, when Mr. O'Brien appeared in Carrick, that crop
was the most abundant, promising and healthy that had been seen for
years. Then it appeared from sea to sea one mass of unvaried rottenness
and decay. Notwithstanding this, I spent hours looking down on the
landscape, and mourning more over the mental and moral blight, which
shed its influence on the public heart, than the plague spot whose dark
circumference embraced the circle of the island. From heat, fatigue and
the effects of weak food, I discharged my stomach more than once, while
descending the ranges of the Comeraghs. I again took up my station for
the night at the village of Sradavalla. It was deemed prudent I should
not sleep in the same house as on the previous night, and about eleven
o'clock, accompanied by five or six men of the village, I proceeded to a
house farther up the mountain. Here the accommodation was not such as we
expected, and we were forced to return. On our arrival, I found my
sister-in-law who was escorted by two boatmen from Carrick-on-Suir, and
who reached this wild seques