HOPE WITH A SLATE ANCHOR. [From Dickens's Household Words.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 811, 11 May 1853, Page 4

HOPE WITH A SLATE ANCHOR. [From Dickens's Household Words.]

Almost everybody knows Killarney — knows about it, at allevents, by book or newspaper, if not by the actual sight of it — but scarcely anybody has either seen or beard of Valencia. " Valencia! why I thought that was in Spain," some one will cry out. '• What can Valencia and Killarney have to do with each other ?" Wby, simply that that they are about forty miles apart, and that everybody who sees Killirney should go on to Valencia. It is true there is a Valencia in Spain ; and it is probable that this island is named after that city ; for there were Spaniirds here, once upon a time, when there was a great trade between Galway and Spain. There were, probably, Spaniards living on the island when the Grand Armada sailed by — fated to lose the great ship, Our Lady of the Rosary, close by, and two more presently after near Kilkee, on the coast of Clare, and more still near the Giant's Causeway

in the north. All Ireland was supplied with wine from Spain between two and three centuries ago ; and it is natural to suppose that merchants or agents from the Spanish Valencia might give its name to the Irish island and port — the ihe most westeily port in Europe. It is a glorious place for scenery ; and it might bo a glorious one for trade. Perhaps it was once ; lam confident it will be some time or other. There it lies, just within a great bay, spreading out its arms as if to guard the lakelike sea within ; and rearing up mountains, as if to prevent the wind of heaven from visiting its face too roughly. The winds do find their way in at times, however; and they*r« so very rough with that smooth sound as to prevent the ferry- J boat passing, and then the people on the island ! cannot get their letters and newspapers, though they are near enough to the mainland to see the post-bags arrive at the ferry-house. The English ; residents say this is a hardship in winter, for they depend so much more than English people can suppose on their letters aud newspapers, in a situation so wild as their island. Last winter, however, there was not a day in which the sound was impassable. If those waters could tell what bas happened on them, and if those mountains on the mainland could echo to our ears the things that have been said in their recesses, we should hear some curious stories. There is one inlet of the sea, which can be overlooked from the island, flowing in among the mountaius, turning and winding, round many a promontory, and past many an old dwelling now in ruins ; and among the rest, the ivy-grown gable, and roofless front of the house where O'Connell was bora. It was up that inlet that smugglers used to steal by night — as the pirates of the olden time bad done before tbem. They used to slip in on one side of the island, while the Government cruiser was watching the other ; and up they came in the shadow of the mountains, and behind the screen of tb« promontories, lying hid in some chasm of the rocks if the enemy came by; and always winning their way up, sooner or later, to tho atill dark cove, on whose brink stands the ivied ruin. We must remember that smuggling was then and there considered rather an act of patriotism than an offence. The inhabitants of these coasts were some of the most disaffected of the Irish ; and they amazingly enjoyed depriving England, and the English part of their own Government, of the produce of the customs, while carrying on a good trade with their dear friends, the French and Spaniards, and making their own fortunes at the same time. Not small, therefore, was the amount of smuggling that went forward — if the local histories are true — at that ivied house, and, iv a somewhat more genteel and disguised manner, at Derrynane Abbey, the retidence formerly of an uucle of O'Connell, and then his own. And the rocks of Valencia itself afford great facilities for the same practice, which used to go on almost unchecked by the coast guard who were, and still are, stationed on the island. I saw their flag, the other ■ day, floating half-mast high, in mourning for Wellington. The men have little to do now but to learn and tell the news, when their routine duty is done ; for France, Spain, and Ireland are no longer the foes of England, and the reduction of customs duties has made smuggling no longer w ortb while ; so that the coast guard have but a dull life of it. And so have the constabulary. Poor fellows ! there is scarcely anything for them to do, now that industry, bringing regular good wages, bas succeeded to the gambling of an illicit trade, with its occasional frays and drunken bonts. I saw them making the most of a small incident, last Sunday, for the want of any more serious employment. In general, they look out, yawning,from the bariedwindows of their barrack; or rub away at their brass plates and buckles, which arc already as bright as the Queen's dinner service ; or lean over a wail peeling an apple, or rush out to tee a traveller pass by. On Sunday last, a dozen or so of half-drunk young men came over, in a high wind, from the mainland to Valencia, raced to the little inn in a staggering sort of way, took possession of the parlour, where all smoked and talked together ; peeped into another parlour where two ladies wem«tting— invaded tht kitchen and lent a bandiotne cooking, shutting up the oven, so as to spoil the apple pie that was baking for the ladies' dinner — and presently burst away again, declaring that they would have a sail in the sound. The wind was now in a roaring state, and the waves were curling with foam, while Neptune's sheep jumped up most pertinaciously against the black rocks. Out went everybody to see how the silly fellows would manage : the old landlady with her shawl over her head, in her little front garden ; the neighbours on points which overlooked the sound; and the gallant soldierly constabulary showing themselves on the road and the little pier. Boats were in readiness, and everybody on the watch, with all their clothes fluttering in the wind. There it was presently — that crowded boat' • flying along with all its sails out, desperately awry, as if it must fill the next moment. It did not, however. The fellows had better luck than they deserved. They struck the ferry pier at the right place, tumbled out, toppled over each other upon a car, and dashed off upon the Cabirciveen road. The adventure was over ; and the constabulary had only to go home again. Despairing of any higher order of romance than thi3, I was disposed to see what the industry of Valencia now is. So a comrade and I begged the favonr of a resident to let his car to us, on Monday morning, that we might see something that vwe had heard of — something better than smuggling — up imo g the hills. We saw that, and a good deal more, in the course of our remarkable drive. There are two main roads in Valencia — the upper and lowers — running nearly its whole length, which is about five Irish miles; that is, nearly seven English. We went by the lower, and returned by the upper. Besides the wellknown spectacle of the Irish cabin — that sad spectacle, too well known to need to be described again — we saw some curious indications of the ways of the inhabitants. To save the trouble of putting up gates to the fields, each man who had a cart had put it in the gateway. This kept ont the cow, but it let in the pigs and fowls; and it did nol matter much to the cow after all. She had only the additional trouble of getling over the low earthen fence — which every cow did to get out of the way of our car. One woman had taken her two cows into the potato plot with her — to help her to dig potatoes, no doubt. At a distance, the thatched roofs (weedy,

and without eaves) and the walls by the roadside appeared to be vandykcd with some pattern of a dirty white colour. On coming near, we found this to be a row of split fish, drying. Fresh fish may [be badjevery day, for the catching ; but the people prefer their fish salt. We looked abroad over the sound, but there was not one single fishing boat nor any sort of vessel ; but on some high land lay a boat on the grass, the only one we saw. Its being there seemed rather like an Irish bull, while the water below looked so blank ior want of it. Next we stopped for some minutes. A young farmer had thought proper to choose the middle of tho high road for winnow* ing his crop of oats. There was plenty of high and dry ground at hand ; but he preferred the middle of the road : so he had to bundle up his { cloth, and shove away his oats, spilling the grain fit every move, and turning in despair from us to a cartful of people who came up at the moment on the other side. To complete his embarrassment, the hone in the cart was blind, and could not be made aware of the concessions required of him. After a loss of much time and oats, we were all at our proper business again — the far- j mer actually dragging bick his apparatus to the i middle of the road, ai soon as it was clear. Besides the cabins and cottages, we saw, near | this road, one solitary, dreary-looking white house. It was tail and rather large, with oo garden or field belonging to it. Its windows looked as if they had never been opened ; its wood work as if it had not been painted for a century ; snd its whitewash was grey with weather staius. It was the Cholera Hospital. Not a token of a dwelling was near, but the remains of a mud hut, melted down by the rains. The sight of the place is enough to give the cholera to a nervous person. Before the famine there were three thousand inhabitants on the island. Now, though the intervening years have settled many new residents there, there are only two thousand five hundred. I wonder how many died in that house, whether scores or hundreds ! As the country people say, " The cholera found them weak from the hunger," and carried them off with wonderful rapidity. Of the three thousand residenti of Valencia, at the time of the famine, two thousand two hundred received relief in food as their only chance for life. But no more of j this now. lam speaking of a scene of health, and industry, and plenty, for all who choose to seek it. All the way from the port, our eyes have been fixed on a tower, high up and afar, with a vast green upland between us and it. We want to reach that tower, for the sake of a gaze over the Atlantic. Arriving at a hamlet of cabins, set down one right before another, with a manure heap and puddle between each, we are told that we must walk the rest of the way : and very tempting looks the long green ascent, with a broad green road just distinguishable in the midst. My comrade asks an old woman how far it is to the tower. No answer. She understands nothing but Irish. We try a funny looking boy ; but to every sort of question he answers only — " I know ; " and this is evideutly the only English he can speak. There is a girl, pelting the cows with peat, to send them out of the way : she speaks English. My comrade asks "Is there anybody up at the tower ?" " Yes, | Miss," "Who is there?" "Only the cows, Miss." We go to see. There is, indeed a green road, and it must once have been a fine one, judging by the strength of the little bridges over the water courses, which look as good as j | ever. Up we go, up and up, amidst the wondering cattle, some of which lie in our path till the last moment, while others flee, and others again stick out their fore legs, and stand fatt, as if they thought we wanted to knock them down. I One calm-looking munching cow looks benignly at us, as if wishing us a pleasant walk: ; another, a nervous heifer, seems to prick up her horns as a horse pricks np his cars, and looks disposed to run at us in sheer fright. She scampers off when we look at her, and turns, and approaches as we proceed ; and then scampers off again. We find none at the tower. It is too high. For | some time we hive seen nothing alive but a black caterpillar in the grass, and a wagtail seesawing its body on a warm stone. Up at the tower, on the topmost stone of its ruined walls, •its a jackdaw, immensely solemn and important, believing himself no doubt the lord of the scene, But we cannot attend to him now. We can see daws elsewhere ; but nowhere else is there anything like this scene. We sit down on the stones which were once the wall, and look down — nor, if the truth were told, without some of the aching of the bones, which is the miserable pain of those who peep down a precipice, or dream that they are thrown down one. At the same instant, by an odd coi incidence, we ask each other whether there is anything whiter than snow, because the foam, rushing and weltering about that rock in the sunshine below, looks to our eyes whiter than any snow we ever saw. We will tell uo more of this j view from Bray Head, in Valencia. There is no describing the Skellig Hocks, or the black nearer cragt, or the dreamy beauty of the inland view of receding mountains, with glittering sounds and bays runniug in among them. Far out at sea, there are smoke-like showers ; but, turning the other way, or looking below, the water is, where not a true Mediterranean blue, a deep gTeen, or bright lilac. This ruined tower was erected when an invasion was expected ; and the green track was the military road, up which went the soldiers and the cannon. There were once two forts below — north and oooth of J3r«y Head. They were built by Cromwell. If anything remains of them, they are, with this tower, the property of the melancholy daw, which now i& on the move to show us the way down. We must go; for we have not yet seen what we came out for. We return by the upper road ; and my comrade points out that, while there is a well-marked foot-track on the hard road, there is no trace of wheels. It seems as if our car were the first- wheeled carriage that bad ever been there. We observe a sttanger thing than this. While the dwellings are so wretchedly thatched as to look like the huts of savages, the fences are patched with slates — the roads are mended with slates — the broken windows of houses that have windows are blocked up with slates. There are slates everywhere but where they ought to be. These slate symptoms show that we are approaching the object of our drive. After a steep descent, we turn up a left hand road which shows abundant marks of wheels — of wheels broad enough for an ancient Pickford's

waggon. This is the road which ascend* to the slate-quarries, and down which come those enormous blocks of slate — some of them weighing fifteen tons — of which the world is beginning to hear, and, in fact, has heard a great deal since the Great Exhibition. ! A few years ago, people who knew nothing of slate but as a material to roof houses with and do sums upon, were charmed to find it could be made to serve for so large a thing at a billiard table. For billiard tables there is nothing like slate, so perfectly lerel and smooth as it is. Then, fishmongers found there was nothing like slate for their slabs (till they are rich enough to afford marble) ; and farmers' wives discovered the same- thing in regard to their dairies. Plumbers then began to declare that there was nothing like slate for cisterns and sinks : and builders, noticing this, tried slate for the pavement of washbouses, pantries and kitchens, and for cottage floors ; and have long declared that there is nothing like it; it it so clean, and dritt so quickly. If so, thought the ornamental gardener, it must be the very thing for garden chairs, summer houses, sun-dials, and tables in arbours; and it is the very thing. The stonemason was equally pleased with it for gravestones. " Then," said the builder again, when perplexed with complaints of a damp wall in an exposed situation, " why should not a wall be slated as well as a roof, if it wants it as much. So he tried ; and in mountain districts, where one end of a house is exposed to beating rains, we see that end as scaly as a fish — slated like its own roof. Thus it was with the small houses erected for business at the quarry in Valencia ; and the steps leading up to them are of slate ; and the paths before the doors are paved with slate. We look in upon the steam engine ; and we observe that the fittings of the engine-house are all of slate, so that no dust can lodge, and no damp can enter. It is the quarry that we care most to see ; and up to it we go, under the guidance of the overlooker, as soon as he has measured a block of slate with the marked rod he carries in his hand. He is a Welshman — from Bangor — the only person among the one hundred and twenty about the works who is not Irish. Is it really so ? we ask, when we are in the quarry. There is nobody there — not one man or boy among all those groups — who can properly be called ragged. Many have holes in their clothes ; but all bave clothes — real garments, instead of flapping tatters, hung on, nobody knows bow. Another thing. These people are working steadily and gravely. If spoken to, they answer calmly, and with an air of independence — without vociferation, cant, flattery, or any kind of passion. Yet these people are all Irish ; and they speak as they do because they are independent. They have good work ; and they do their work well. They earn good wages ; and they feel independent. These are the people who, in famine time, formed a middle class between the few proprietors in the island and the many paupers. The receivers of relief, we have said, were two thousand two hundred. The proprietors and their families were two hundred. These work-people and their families were the remaining six hundred. They look like people who could hold their ground in a season of stress. This quarry was their anchorage. What a noble place it is ! We «limb till we find ourselves standing on the upper tramway, or the verge of a precipice of slate, wiih a rough wall of slate behind vs — of all shades of grey, from white to black, contrasting well with the \ orange line of the iron mould caused by the drip \ from the roof upon the tramway ; bnt the ceiling is the most prodigious thing about the place. It is, in sober trutb, in its massiveness, greyness, smoothness, and vastness, somewhat like the granite roof in the great chamber of the great Pyramid. It takes away one's breath with something of the same crushing feeling. And then, lock at the groups clustered or half hidden in this enormoui cavern. How small every one looks — the men with the borers and mallets, making holes for the blasting ; the men with the wedges and mallets, splitting off great blocks : some on shelves high up over head ; some in cupboards far within ; some in dark crevices in the mighty walls ! Knock, knock, knock go the mallets, with an echo following each knock, — far, near, incessant ; and the echo of the drip heard tnrougb all — an echo for every plash. What are they doing below — those two men with the chain and hooks, that they can scarcely shift ? They are fixing the hooks in crevices under that horizontal mass of slate. It rises, and as it rises they shift the hookc further into the cracks, till the block breaks off. When the j hooks are in the middle of its weight it rises steadily — wliy and how ? Look at that tramway in the air overhead, the waggon way supported on those enormous beams, which are themselves upheld by clamps fixed in the slate walls of the cavern. On each side of that truck there is a stage, and in each stage is a man working a windiass, which turns a cog wheel, by which the truck is moved forward or backward. The chains and hooks which are raising the block hang down from this machinery ; and as the men in the air work their cog wheel, the men on ground stand away from under the bloc*, and see it moved and deposited on the truck which is to convey it to the saw mill. That truck is on the tramway below, and a horse draws it to the saw mill, where the block will be raised again by more airy machinery, and placed in the right position for the saws. It weighs only about three tons. A single horse can draw a weight of five tons. The largest size is, as has been said, fifteen tons. We go down to the saw-mills — down, among, and round, hillocks of refuse. The noise in the mill is so horrid — in kind as well as degree — that we cannot stay : but a glance is enough. The engine works the great saws, which here do not split the blocks, but square them, and smooth their sides and ends. The rest is done at the works below — at the port. The grating and rasping can be better conceived than described or endured. Above the blocks are suspended a sort of funnel, from which sand and water drip, in aid of the srwing process. We see this, glance fitifte curious picture of grey blocks — perpendicular saws, apparently moving up and down by their own will — and superintending men— and thinking how good a spectacle it would be, but for the tremendous noise, hasten away. On the road down hill is one of the broadwheeled trucks, laden with an enormous block. We wonder bow we shall pass it. We do so, by favour of a recess in the road, and jog on. On the left,* opens a charming narrow lane, overhung with ash and birch, gay with gorse, and bristling

with brambles. We jump off our car, dismiss ir, plunge down the line, waste a vist deal of timein feastisg on blackberries — the dessert to our biscuit-lunch — and at last tit down on some atonesto say hew good Valencia blackberries are, an* bow gaudy a Valencia lane is with gone an* heather ; and then we talk over and fix in our memories what we have seen j and finally emerge from the bottom of the lane, explore the dairy and old home si tbi Knight •( Kerry, and proceed oq our way te- the worka at the pert, heedless of how the time sfips away while we gaze at the lighthouse, and th* apposite shore, and far away over Dingle Bay, to- the faint blue Dingle mountains. We do, however, at length- teach thegate of the works. We miss the terrible noise of which- we ha* been warned, and which had made itself heard inour inn. The works are, in fact r stopped for ther repair of the machinery ; and as they will not be going again while we are in Valencia,, we canonly look round and see what we c»d. We seeon every hand noble slabs of slate, many feet long and broad, and from half-an-inch to three inches in thickness. Scores of them are standing on* edge, leaning against each other, ai if they could/ be lifted up, and carried away like sheets of pastes board. By picking up a bit that has been cut off, one finds the difference. It is very heavy ; and this, I suppose, is the impediment to its adoption for many domestic purposes for which it is otherwise remarkably fit. One boy was at work on a great piece that we could make nothing of without explanation. It had large round holes cut out, as if with a monstrous cheese-taster, the slabbeing an inch thick : and the boy was cutting out pieces of what was left between the circles. It was for the ridge of a house ; and in a moment we saw that the pattern was like that of many barge-boards of ornamented cottages. We found that the carving, turning, and ornamental manufacture of slate articles does not proceed far in Valencia, as the London houses do not like rivalship in that part of the business ; but in the abode of the proprietor we saw, in an amusing way, what might be done by any one who has a mind to furnish his house with slate. On entering the garden door, we found, as might be expected, a pavement of slate, smooth and close-fined, leading up to the house. The borders of the parterres were of upright slates ; and there was a little gravestone in the grass — in memory, doubtless, of some domestic pct — of the same material. The narrow paths between the vegetable beds were paved with slate, and reasonably, considering how wet the climate is, and how quickly slate dries. The sundial and garden seats followed of course. Entering the bouse, we found, not only the paveir.ent of the hall, but its lower panels, of slate ; and this reminded us of the excellency of granaries and barns which are flagged instead of boarded, and have a skirting-board of slate, which keeps out rats and mice altogether, supposing the door to be in good order. The saving in grain soon pays the difference between such a material and wood, which rats always can and do gnaw through, soouer or later. In the hall were an umbrella and bat-stand, a slab, and a standard-lamp all of slate. The weight is a favourable quality in the first and last of these articles ; bat, great as is the advantage of the lamp not being liable to be upset,, the colour of slate is too dark. Dark lamp- stands absorb too much light. In the dining-robm was a very handsome round table of state — variegated somewhat like marble, and delightfully clean looking, smooth, and level. Its weight makes it ail but immoveable ; end this may be an objection : but there is no doubt of its beauty — with its moulded rim, its well-turned stem, and finished pedestal. At the Knight of Kerry's house we had seen a carved mautel-piece, with fluted pillars of slate ; and here we saw other mantelpieces, variously carved. The fenders were delight'ul ;— smoothly turned slopes, which invited the feet to rest and be warmed ; — simple, effectual, and so neat as to be really pre ty. There was nothing that we liked so well as the fenders — unlesi it was the paper-weights, simply ornamented; or the bo«k-sbelves — perfectly plain, with their lounded edges, and their evident capacity to bear any weight. No folios, however ancient — no atlasses, however magnificent, can bend a shelf of slate ; and I very much doubt whether the spider can fasten her thread to its surface. No insect can penetrate it ; and this indicates the value of slate furniture in India, and in our tropical Colonies, where ants hollow out everything wooden, from the foundation of a house to its roof- tree. Hearth-stones of slate were a matter of course in this house ; and we wished they had been so in some others, where there has been repeated danger of fire from sparks or hot ashes falling between the joints of the stones composing the hearlb. Then, there were a music-stand, a what-not, a sofa-table — aud probably many more articles in the bed-rooms, kitchen, and offices which we did not see. It stems to us that we have heard so much of new applications of slate, within two or three years, as to show that the world is awakening to a sense of Us uses ; but such a display as this was a curious novelty. I believe it is only recently that it has been discovered how well this material bears turning and carving, and how fit it, therefore, is to be used in masses where solidity is required, together with a capacity for ornament. If its use become as extensive as there is reason to suppose, the effect upon many a secluded mountain population will be great. The slatequarry men of our islauds are, for the most part a primitive, and even semi- barbarous set of people—Valencia being one of the excepted cases In Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Wales, very important social changes must take place, in whole districts, through an increased demand for slate— better wrought out of the mountain than at present. As for Valencia, not onlj is its slats far finer, and more skilfully obtained than any we have seen elsewhere ; but the workmen are a body of light to the region they inhabit. They marry, when they can, English girls, or girls who have had English training in household ways. Their dwellings are already superior to those of their neighbours; and, if the works increase, through an increased demand, so as to become the absorbing interest of Valencia, the island may become a school of social progress to the whole west of Ireland, where such a school is sorely needed.