wn to the station to be whirled
away to Dublin, I thought that perhaps my fellow-readers of the MAGAZINE
would bear with me while I gossiped for half an hour on the story of
this grand old monastery, the mother-house of Iona.

You know where Derry is, or if you don't your atlas will tell you, that
it is away up in the north of Ireland, where, situated on the shores of
the Lough Foyle, coiling its streets round the slopes of a hill till on
the very summit they culminate in the cross-crowned tower of St.
Columb's Cathedral, it lies in the midst of a beautiful country just
like a cameo fallen into a basket of flowers. The houses cluster round
the base of the hill on the land side, spread themselves in irregular
masses over the adjoining level, or clamber up the opposite rise on the
brow of which stands St. Eugene's Cathedral, yet unfinished, and the
pile of turrets which constitute Magee College. A noble bridge spans the
Foyle, and through a forest of shipmasts one may see on the other side
the city rising up from the water, and stretching along the bending
shore till it becomes lost in the villa-studded woods of Prehen.

The massive walls, half hidden by encroaching commerce, the grim-looking
gates, and the old rusty cannon whose mouth thundered the "No" of the
"Maiden City" to the rough advances of James, in 1689, give the city a
mediaeval air that well accords with its monastic origin. For, let her
citizens gild the bitter pill as they may, the cradle of Derry--the
Rochelle of Irish Protestantism--was rocked by monks--aye, by monks in
as close communion with Rome as are the dread Jesuits to-day.

Fourteen hundred years ago the Foyle flowed on to mingle its waters with
ocean as calmly as it does to-day, but its peaceful bosom reflected a
far different scene. Then the fair, fresh face of nature was unsullied
by the hand of man. "The tides flowed round the hill which was of an
oval form, and rose 119 feet above the level of the sea, thus forming an
island of about 200 acres."[1] A Daire or oak grove spread its leafy
shade over the whole, and gave shelter to the red deer and an unceasing
choir of little songsters. It was called in the language of the time
"Daire-Calgachi." The first part of the name in the modern form of
Derry, still remains--though now the stately rows of oak have given way
to the streets of a busy city, and the smoke of numerous factories
clouds the atmosphere.

One day, in the early part of 546, there