on to the fleet of fine ships, owned by the City of Dublin Steam
Packet Company. She is a magnificent vessel, 380 feet long, 38 feet in
beam, 2,589 tons, and 6,000 horse-power; her fine, broad bridge,
handsome deck-houses, and brass work glisten in the bright sunlight.
She carries electric light; and the many airy private cabins indicate
that, though built for speed, the comfort of her passengers has been a
matter of much consideration. She is well captained, well officered,
well manned, and well navigated. The good-looking, weather-beaten
Captain Kendall is indeed the commodore of the company, and has made
the passage for nearly thirty years. There is an unusually large number
of passengers to-day, for it is the first week of the accelerated
speed, and it is amusing to notice the rapidity with which the mails
are shipped, on men's backs, which plan is found quicker than any
appliance. Captain Cay remarks that it is no uncommon thing to ship
seven hundred sacks on foreign mail days; he says, too, that never
since these vessels were started has there been a single accident to
life or limb. But the last bag is on board, steam is up, and away goes
the ship past the South Stack lighthouse, built on an island under
precipitous cliffs, from which a gun is fired when foggy, and in about
an hour the Irish coast becomes visible, Howth and Bray Head. The sea
gets pretty rough, but luckily does not interfere with your excellent
appetite for the first-class refreshments supplied. The swift-revolving
paddles churn the big waves into a thick foam as the good ship
_Ireland_ ploughs her way through at the rate of twenty knots an hour,
'making good weather of it', and actually accomplishes the voyage in
three hours and fifteen minutes--one of the shortest runs on record.
The punctuality with which these mail packets make the passage in all
weathers is indeed truly wonderful--a fact which is experienced a few
days later on the return journey. Kingstown is reached at 6.10 p.m.
(Irish time), where the mail train is waiting to convey passengers by
the new loop line that runs in a curve right through 'dear dirty
Dublin', as it is popularly called, to Kingsbridge, and so on to Cork,
where you put up for the night at the Imperial Hotel.

Another bright sunshiny morning opens, and shows old Cork at her best.
Cork! the old city of Father Prout's poem, 'The Bells of Shandon',
which begins thus: With deep affection and recollection

I often thi