wn. Not a soul was stirring excepting the blacksmith, who had been
knocked up comparatively early by the market folk. There was ample
time and space to inspect the fierce but sleepy-headed town. In the
main street I observed six grog-shops, side by side, actually shoulder
to shoulder, cheek by jowl. Another street appeared to be all
grog-shops but for the ominous exception of an undertaker. About nine
o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the
butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the
main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering
groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness.
Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and
preparing to renew the battle with "John Jamieson."

Presently the mare came round to the door of the principal hotel. The
people there were just stirring, and visions of brooms and unkempt
back-hair were frequent. At last we were on the road to Clare Castle,
which might, in the high-flown language of the West, be fitly
described as the "seaport" of Ennis. The river Fergus flows through
Ennis, but it is broader and deeper at Clare Castle, a village of
ordinary Connaught hovels. There is, however, a quay here, a relic of
"relief-work" in famine time, and affording "convenience" for vessels
of considerable size. Below the bridge and alongside the quay lies a
large steam-tug, and lower down the stream is moored a similar vessel.
A large number of rafts are being laden with stone to be presently
towed down to the reclamation works. As we steam down the Fergus
towards its junction with the Shannon at "The Beeves" rock, the stream
spreads out to a great width, enclosing several islands, green as
emeralds, of which Smith's Island and Islandavanna are, perhaps, the
principal.

There is, however, a marked difference between the area of the Fergus
at high and low water. What at one time is an inland sea, is at the
other a vast lake of mud rich in the constituents of fertility. As we
reach this point of the river a mist arises compelling reduced speed,
and as we pass by the upper station of the Slob Works a low range of
corrugated iron shedding shines out suddenly through a break in the
vapour, and, as the sun again pierces through, a long, low, dark line
is seen stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of
some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime
and ooze. B