d taken to see the Lakes of Killarney is a sad spectacle, because
these people believe that they are learning Ireland, even as men believe
that they are studying America when they contemplate the Niagara Falls.

But afterwards, if one escapes, one can go forth, unguided, untaught and
alone, and look at Ireland. The joys of the pig-market, the delirium of
a little tap-room filled with brogue, the fierce excitement of viewing
the Royal Irish Constabulary fishing for trout, the whole quaint and
primitive machinery of the peasant life--its melancholy, its sunshine,
its humour--all this is then the property of the man who breaks like a
Texan steer out of the pens and corrals of the tourist agencies. For
what syndicate of maiden ladies--it is these who masquerade as tourist
agencies--what syndicate of maiden ladies knows of the existence, for
instance, of Ballydehob?

One has a sense of disclosure at writing the name of Ballydehob. It was
really a valuable secret. There is in Ballydehob not one thing that is
commonly pointed out to the stranger as a thing worthy of a half-tone
reproduction in a book. There is no cascade, no peak, no lake, no guide
with a fund of useless information, no gamins practised in the seduction
of tourists. It is not an exhibit, an entry for a prize, like a heap of
melons or cow. It is simply an Irish village wherein live some three
hundred Irish and four constables.

If one or two prayer-towers spindled above Ballydehob it would be a
perfect Turkish village. The red tiles and red bricks of England do not
appear at all. The houses are low, with soiled white walls. The doors
open abruptly upon dark old rooms. Here and there in the street is some
crude cobbling done with round stones taken from the bed of a brook. At
times there is a great deal of mud. Chickens depredate warily about the
doorsteps, and intent pigs emerge for plunder from the alleys. It is
unavoidable to admit that many people would consider Ballydehob quite
too grimy.

Nobody lives here that has money. The average English tradesman with his
back-breaking respect for this class, his reflex contempt for that
class, his reverence for the tin gods, could here be a commercial lord
and bully the people in one or two ways, until they were thrown back
upon the defence which is always near them, the ability to cut his skin
into strips with a wit that would be a foreign tongue to him. For amid
his wrongs and his rights and his failures--his co