Caoilte

“ And she came to him out of the cave of Cruachan, and asked him for the bride-price he had promised her, and that she was never able to come and ask for till then. And Caoilte went to a cairn that was near and that was full up of gold, that was wages earned by Conan Maol and hidden there, and he gave the gold to Bodb Dearg's daughter. And the people that were there wondered to see the girl so young and comely, and Caoilte so grey and bent and withered. ”

“ And when Caoilte saw he knew him he spoke out and he said: "Tell me what way I can get freedom for my master." "There is no way to get freedom for him but by doing one thing," said the king, "and that is a thing you can never do. If you can bring me together a couple of all the wild creatures of Ireland," he said, "I will give up your master to you then."
When Caoilte heard him say that he made no delay, but he set out from Teamhair, and went through the whole of Ireland to do that work for the sake of Finn. ”

“ Then Caoilte and his comrades took up three stones and threw them at the flocks and drove them away. "Power and blessings to you," said the people of the Sidhe then, "that is a good work you have done. And there is another thing you can do for us," they said, "for there are three ravens come to us every year out of the north, and the time the young lads of the hill are playing their hurling, each one of the ravens carries off a boy of them. And it is to-morrow the hurling will be," they said. ”

“ THE PASSING OF CAOILTE
'Twas just before the truce sang thro' the din
Caoilte, the thin man, at the war's red end
Leaned from the crooked ranks and saw his friend
Fall in the farther fury; so when truce
Halted advancing spears the thin man came
And bending by pale Oscar called his name ”

“ Fionn's adventures are mainly of a supernatural kind— combats with gods, giants, phantoms, and other fantastic beings, apart from those in which he fought Norsemen or other foreign powers, an anachronism needing no comment. On one occasion Fionn, Oisin, and Caoilte came to a mysterious house, where a giant seized their horses and bade them enter. In the house were a three-headed hag and a headless man with an eye in his breast; and as they sang at the giant's bidding, nine bodies arose on one side and nine heads on the other, shrieking discordantly. ”

“ The parting of us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid, hero of the bright lake of Carman."
And then to rouse him she would make another song, and it is what she would say: "Caoinche will be loosed on your track; it is not slow the running of Caoilte will be; do not let death reach to you, do not give yourself to sleep for ever.
"The stag to the east is not asleep, he does not cease from bellowing; though he is in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is not in his mind ”

“ The road is one continuous village, for the population is twelve times as dense in the western as in the eastern provinces of Ceylon. No wonder that ten thousand natives have died of cholera within the last few months! All this dense coast population is supported by the cocoanut, for there are in Ceylon 200,000 acres under cocoa-palms, which yield from seven to eight hundred million cocoa-nuts a year, and are worth two millions sterling. ”

“ When we got fairly clear of the harbour of Trincomalee, and caught the monsoon, we dashed along-shore briskly enough; and having rounded the south point of Ceylon, well named Dondra Head, or thunder cape, we paid a visit to Point de Galle, celebrated for its bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts. We then passed on to Columbo, the capital of the island. Ceylon, I may take occasion to mention, is not considered by our countrymen of the East to be in India. ”

“ We met a caravan of traders coming from Jenné, where they had purchased salt; they had with them some horses, which they had also bought at that place. About nine o’clock in the morning we halted at Couara, a pretty village, where we found an abundance of all the necessaries of life. The inhabitants grow a great deal of cotton and millet, and are supplied with water from a stream which runs E. N. E., half a mile from the village. ”

“ Continuing our course till ten o’clock in the morning, we found the river bend to the north; at this part, a very wide arm, branching from the river, extended to the east.
About eleven we passed Salacoila, a village of the wandering Foulahs, situated on the right bank; they build their huts on the quicksands. I went ashore with a negro to purchase a little milk, and saw some of the women, who were pretty well dressed; they would not take our cowries, but wanted millet or rice in exchange. ”

“ He knew at once who they were. Not twice in a man's lifetime do boys, fresh from a city school, travel up into Central Australia and leave the few little centres of civilization which are there, and strike out west into the desert; so the drover was certain that one of those white boys was his son.
He spent a whole day describing the boy to Coiloo. He only had an old photograph to guide him, and even this had been left behind in the packs near the fatal water-hole ”

“ Chamai, Bichri, and Abigail joined us there. Looking towards the sea, we had on our left the Cothôn and the Admiralty palace, and on our right the island which had been the original nucleus of the colony, and the trade-harbour which separated it from the mainland. Landwards rose the white buildings and terraces of the city, threaded by dark winding streets, and studded with domes painted red and brown, and culminating towards the south in the massive citadel, the residence of the sacred suffect. ”

“ Let us admit the westerly direction: a certain communication will then exist also between the Couara and the Chary; only, after having descended a current southwards, we must ascend another eastward, and thence redescend northwards, into the central lake. This is the most plausible theory I can devise upon Major Denham’s opinion; this is nearly the case with the White Nile and the Misselad, both taking their rise in one of the lakes of Gebel-Koumri. Upon this system, the Couara will continue, after the confluence, to flow southwards, and fall into the sea near the coast of Benin. ”

“ From Quigaute to Coligoa may be forty leagues. This town of Coligoa stood at the foot of a hill, on the bank of a mean river, of the bigness of Cayas, the river that passeth by Estremadura. It was a fat soil and so plentiful of maize, that they cast out the old, to bring in the new. There was also great plenty of French beans and pompions. The French beans were greater, and better than those of Spain, and likewise the pompions, and being roasted, they have almost the taste of chestnuts. The Cacique of Coligoa gave a guide to Cayas, and stayed behind in his own town. ”

“ A row of houses—all erected since his young days—still blocked the view of the harbour. But just beyond them, where a roadway led down to the ferry, the exquisite scene broke upon him—the harbour entrance, with the antique castles pretending to guard it; the vessels (his own amongst them) in the land-locked anchorage; the open sea beyond, violet blue to the morning under a steady off-shore breeze; white gulls flashing aloft, and, in the offing, a pair of gannets hunting above the waters.
Captain Cai took no truck (as he would have said) in the beauties of nature ”

“ At the extreme end of the town his way led him through the entrance of a wooded valley, or coombe, down which a highroad, a rushing stream, and a railway line descend into Troy Harbour, more or less in parallels, from the outside world. A creek runs some little way up the vale. In old days—in Captain Cai's young days—it ran up for half a mile or more to an embanked mill-pool and a mill-wheel lazily turning: and Rilla Farm had in those days been Rilla Mill, with a farmstead attached as the miller's parergon. ”

“ Cailsham—one of those small antiquated towns which, in its day, has had its name writ in history—sits at the feet of the hills, like an old man, weary of toil, and gazes out with sleepy eyes over the garden of Kent. In the spring, the country is patched with white around—white, with the blossoms in the fruit plantations. ”

“ When the later English travellers had gained intelligence of a river called Couara, to the west of Saccatou, and of the river which is near Funda, it was remembered that this name is also borne by the upper Dhioliba, and these three rivers have been at once identified; but it appears that Couara is a general term signifying a river. The inhabitants who in three different places have been asked the name of the river, not understanding the question, have answered by the word river. ”

“ An idea of the general aspect of Ceylon will be formed from what has here been described. Nearly four parts of the island are undulating plains, slightly diversified by offsets from the mountain system which entirely covers the remaining fifth. Every district, from the depths of the valleys to the summits of the highest hills, is clothed with perennial foliage; and even the sand-drifts, to the ripple on the sea line, are carpeted with verdure, and sheltered from the sunbeams by the cool shadows of the palm groves. ”

“ Resuming my walk in the afternoon, I climbed the heights west of the city, and after passing through a suburb four or five miles in length, entered the vale of the Cailly. This is one of the sweetest scenes in France. It lies among the woody hills like a Paradise, with its velvet meadows and villas and breathing gardens. The grass was starred with daisies and if I took a step into the oak and chesnut woods, I trampled on thousands of anemones and fragrant daffodils. The upland plain, stretching inward from the coast, wears a different character. ”

“ The town is built on a rising ground, having fair [Pg 311] meadows on one side, and a river with a strong ancient castle, said to have been built by King Coilus, father of Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, of whom I find no memory save at the pinnacle of one of their wool-staple houses, where is a statue of Coilus, in wood, wretchedly carved. The walls are exceedingly strong, deeply trenched, and filled with earth. ”

“ To those who contemplate the investment of capital in Ceylon, as to those who are already engaged in cultivation, the Labour Question is important. In 1904, 76,963 coolies came from Southern India, and 56,246 returned. All coolies on arrival are sent to Ragama Camp, eight miles from Colombo, whence, after a detention of twenty-four hours, they are despatched to their destination. The coolies are contented and peaceable. Medical aid is provided in every district. There are sixty-six hospitals and 371 outdoor dispensaries in the island. ”

“ When the neighbouring villages are threatened with pillage by the damel, or king, of Cayor, their inhabitants seek refuge at N’pâl, where they are not only received, but also find generous allies who take up their defence.
Throughout the whole country the huts are small, ill constructed, and extremely filthy; the door is so low that to enter you are obliged to crawl on all fours. The residence of each family is composed of several huts surrounded by quick hedges, planted at random and without taste: sometimes this inclosure is formed merely of posts and rails, or a kind of palisade of straw. ”

“ In Cabool, you no sooner leave the bazar, than you find yourself on the banks of the river, which are beautifully shaded by trees of mulberry, willow, and poplar. Almost all the roads round the city lead by the verge of aqueducts or running water. ”

“ Even assuming that the figures employed by the author of the Rajavali partake of the exaggeration common to all oriental narratives, no one who has visited the regions now silent and deserted, once the homes of millions, can hesitate to believe that when the island was in the zenith of its prosperity, the population of Ceylon must of necessity have been at least ten times as great as it is at the present day. ”

“ The Capital, Cayenne, with about one half of the population, at the mouth of the Oyack River, is the only town of importance. It is well situated on a rocky eminence with a pleasant view of the harbor. It might be made more attractive than Georgetown, but the colony has always been a little behind the others, its use as a penal settlement being a great disadvantage. ”

“ As to fruit trees, it is only on the coast, or near the large villages and towns, that they are found in any perfection. In the deepest jungle the sight of a single coco-nut towering above the other foliage is in Ceylon a never-failing landmark to intimate to a traveller his approach to a village. The natives have a superstition that the coco-nut will not grow out of the sound of the human voice, and will die if the village where it had previously thriven become deserted ”

“ The natives at once despise and fear the great cayman. I once spent a month at Caiçara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about twenty miles to the west of Ega. My entertainer, the only white in the place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senhor Innocencio Alves Faria, one day proposed a half-day's fishing with net in the lake,—the expanded bed of the small river on which the village is situated. We set out in an open boat with six Indians and two of Innocencio's children. ”

“ At Pierrefitte, the valley contracts to a deep gorge, like that which leads to Cauterets, but the scenery round bears a softer character. The defile is much narrower, the hills more green and smiling, and though, perhaps, the whole may be more beautiful, it appears to want grandeur, after having seen Cauterets. For some way the road winds round the projecting bases of the hills, till at length it opens upon the beautiful valley of Luz, presenting a rich scene, not unlike the basin of Argelés. ”