If they could only have resurrected the famous
Irish architect _Gobhan Saer_, he would have advised making a well-
cemented bottom for the canal considering that a subterraneous river
runs from one lake to the other under it. They did not do this, however,
and when the grand canal was finished and the water let on the bottom
fell out in places and the waters fell through to their kindred waters.
The next famine they will require to dig and blast downward and still
downward till they find the underground river and the runaway water.
Coming past the costly and well-built bridge which spans the almost dry
stream that pours into the leaky canal somewhere, I saw some women round
a hollow in the stream that retained a little water. They were rinsing
out some woollen stuffs after dying them blue. They had warm petticoats
of madder red, and I was glad to see them look so comfortably clad and
thrifty.
After returning to the hotel I was waited on by an elderly lady of the
peasant class, a woman over eighty years of age. She had for sale some
pillow lace edging of her own manufacture, which she offered at
threepence per yard.
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