Читать книгу A Journey of a Jayhawker - W. Y. Morgan - Страница 9

FIRST DAY IN IRELAND.

Cork, Ireland, June 3.

The first vivid impression made upon me in Ireland was the morning after we landed. We had come ashore late at night at Queenstown, and except for the Irish names and Irish brogue there was nothing to indicate but that we were going through an American custom-house into an American hotel. But when we went to breakfast up came the waiter attired in full dress and extra long-tailed coat with a red vest. I had always supposed the pictures of an English or Irish waiter in such livery at breakfast was a joke. It is not a joke. It is a most serious and proper attire, and I suppose an Irish waiter in a first-class hotel would as soon appear to serve breakfast without any pants as without the long swallowtail coat. And when I saw that, I knew I was far away from home.

A European breakfast is “rolls and coffee.” In anticipation I had thought of hot rolls and delicious coffee. Put this down: There are no hot rolls in Ireland, and I am guessing there will be none in Europe. “Rolls” means plain, very plain, cold bread, hard and a trifle stale. The coffee is bum and the cream is skim-milk. An English hotel, for that is what Irish first-class hotels are, ought to put more into the eating and less into the waiter’s uniform. Along with other Americans at that first breakfast, we joined in a howl and managed to get some eggs.

Queenstown is one of the largest and best of the British harbors. It has an important navy yard and several English warships are anchored among the numerous merchant vessels. The town is on the side of a high hill which comes down to the water’s edge, and the narrow streets go up and down the slope at every angle except a right angle to the street along the waterfront. The chief resources of Queenstown are sailors and tourists, and the main occupations of the leading inhabitants are lodging-houses and saloons. Over nearly every store is the sign, “Licensed to sell ale, porter and spirits seven days in the week.”

THE IRISH JAUNTING (JOLTING) CAR.

There is nothing much to Queenstown except the quaintness that comes from age and dirt, and I have seen enough American towns with the same characteristics to make this an old story. But we walked and climbed to the top of the hill, and there I saw a panorama spread out before me which will stick to my memory a good long while. The large harbor, locked on three sides and part of the fourth with land, made a blue setting for the white of the numerous ships. Little sailboats drifted over the quiet water and tugs and launches darted in and out among the big vessels. Eight-oared boats from the warships, manned with uniformed sailors from the royal navy, skimmed back and forth, the eight oars rising and falling as one. Flags were flying from mastheads, and the decks were lively with the work of the day. Up from the shore on every side except where the ocean’s blue appeared, rose the greenest green hills you ever saw, and they reached to the bluest blue sky you ever saw, a frame for the picture which no artist could ever hope to portray.

An Irish woman whose son had gone to America and sent back for the mother and little sister, had never been far from home before. Leading the little girl by the hand she was walking to Queenstown and came in sight of the harbor from the top of the hill. The beauty of the scene impressed her, but she added a lesson for the benefit of the daughter: “Look at the beautiful sight and see how wonderful is the work of Nature. See the big ships side by side, and all around them their little ones.”

Queenstown is the harbor for Cork, which is twelve miles up the river Lee. It is the commercial metropolis of southern Ireland and has furnished more policemen to America than any town of twice its size in the United States. Of course the first thing we did was to ride in a jaunting-car and go to Blarney Castle. The castle looks just about as it did last summer on the Pike at St. Louis. But the surrounding grounds are as pretty as they can be. I hesitate when it comes to describing the park with its stately trees, its beautiful grassy slopes crowned with wild flowers, its moss and ivy which cling to wall and tree, covering defects, revealing charms, enhancing beauties. The castle itself was built by McCarthy, king of Munster, in 1446, and while of course uninhabited and in partial ruin, is in good preservation, to make an Irish bull of it. We climbed to the top, we reveled in the rich scene around us, kissed the blarney stone and cheerfully gave the care-taker twice the usual fee because she said Americans were the best people on earth. Then we had the nicest lunch that has come our way since we left Kansas—an Irish lunch of bread and butter, cold ham and milk. We had traveled all morning and climbed among ruins from 12 to 2 o’clock. If you want the best lunch on earth, no matter what it is made of, climb towers for a couple of hours.

There are some things that are peculiarly Irish. The jaunting-car is one of them. It is the favorite vehicle for driving. It looks like a two-wheel cart, driver’s seat in the front end and passengers’ seats back to back, facing outward. My fellow-traveler, Mr. McGregor, says the Irish brogue has perverted into jaunting-car the real name, which is jolting-car. The driver is always a good fellow and he keeps the horse on the gallop much of the time. You have to learn to keep your seat on a jaunting-car as you do on a bicycle. You also have to learn to weigh the statements of your driver as to distances and legends as you do the promises of a candidate for office. We suggested to one that a jaunting-car driver had to lie. “We never lie, sir,” said the Irishman. “But we stretch it a little.”

After a week on shipboard, during which time I had patiently shaved myself, I yearned for the comforting work of a good barber. At the best hotel in Cork, a city of 80,000 people, I went to the best barber shop in town. The chair was just like a common wooden kitchen chair, only not quite so comfortable. There was a head-rest made out of a two-by-four scantling, and when the barber pulled my head back onto that I knew my dream of a comfortable shave was to be a nightmare. He made the lather in a wash-basin and I think he honed the razor on a grindstone. It cut all right when it didn’t pull out by the roots. When the operation was finished he combed my hair with my head still back, washed my face with cold water and rubbed it with a coarse towel. The barber charged me twopence (equivalent to four cents). And that was my first experience with a European tonsorial artist. Perhaps sometime in my life I have felt cross at a barber at home because the razor pulled or because he squirted bay rum into my eye. But in the future I will never murmur, except to recall my experience in Cork and thank God for American barbers.

The day we came to Cork there was an election for poor-law guardians, only a local affair, but I attended. The voting is by Australian ballot just as in America. The suffrage is restricted to householders, including those who pay a certain rent, and women vote the same as men. The politicians at the polling-place treated me well and explained all the methods. One of the workers told the judge that they should let me vote, as when he had visited his brother in America they had let him vote twice while there. I proposed that if they would let me vote for poor-law guardians in the county of Cork I would let any of them vote for councilman in the Fourth ward of Hutchinson. We had a good friendly visit, and it was easy to see that Irishmen are politicians in the Old World as well as the New. After a man or woman voted he or she was always given a drink at the nearest place where “spirits” are sold. But when the polls closed instead of going ahead and counting the votes, the judges adjourned until noon the next day—the invariable custom. It was not until the afternoon following the election when it was learned who “stood at the top of the poll.” We couldn’t stand the pressure that long in America.

There were placards up all around telling the voters to “vote the straight ticket,” “vote for the interest of labor,” and “vote for your own interests.” The newspapers the next day told of the vicious conduct of the opposition and the immoral practices resorted to. But as a rule the Irish people are like Americans, accepting the result with good feeling and promises of what will be done to the other fellows the next time.