m the haven, and at which place our surgeons attended them daily.
Here we well refreshed ourselves, while the Irish harp sounded sweetly
in our ears, and here we, who in our former extremity were in a manner
half dead, had our lives as it were restored.

[Footnote 368: Called otherwise Dingle Icouch by the editor of Astleys
collection.--E.]

This Dingenacush is the chief town in all that part of Ireland,
consisting but of one street, whence some smaller ones proceed on either
side. It had gates, as it seemed, in former times at either end, to shut
and open as a town of war, and a castle also. The houses are very
strongly built, having thick stone walls and narrow windows, being used,
as they told us, as so many castles in time of troubles, among the wild
Irish or otherwise. The castle and all the houses in the town, except
four, were taken and destroyed by the Earl of Desmond; these four being
held out against him and all his power, so that he could not win them.
There still remains a thick stone wall, across the middle of the street,
which was part of their fortification. Some of the older inhabitants
informed us, that they were driven to great extremities during their
defence, like the Jews of old when besieged by the Roman emperor Titus,
insomuch that they were constrained by hunger to feed on the carcasses
of the dead. Though somewhat repaired, it still remains only the ruins
of their former town. Except in the houses of the better sort, they have
no chimnies, so that we were very much incommoded by the smoke during
our stay at that place. Their fuel is turf, which they have very good,
together with whins or furze. As there grows little wood hereabout,
building is very expensive; as also they are in want of lime, which they
have to bring from a far distance. But they have abundance of stone, the
whole country appearing entirely composed of rocks and stones, so that
they commonly make their hedges of stone, by which each mans ground is
parted from his neighbour. Yet their country is very fruitful, and
abounds in grass and grain, as appears by the abundance of cattle and
sheep; insomuch that we had very good sheep, though smaller than those
of England, for two shillings, or five groats a-piece, and good pigs and
hens for threepence each.

The greatest want is of industrious and husbandly inhabitants, to till
and improve the ground; for the common sort, if they can only provide
sufficient to serve them from hand to m