The following morning a portion of our travellers started by train for Suez, across a waving, billowy-looking tract of interminable sand. Except the "half-way house," (a miserable shed,) there is no human habitation all the way, and nothing to be seen but long files of camels slowly wending their way across the desert. After enjoying for a few minutes the first sight of the Red Sea, the consul obligingly lent them horses to ride to the Lesseps Canal, which was then completed to within six miles of Suez. Upward of 5000 Arabs had been pressed into the service by the pasha, and the poor creatures were toiling under the burning sun, with no pay and wretched food, and, when night came, sleeping under the banks. The mortality among them was frightful; but it was in this way that the pasha paid for his shares! Our travellers tasted the water, the first that had ever been brought to Suez, except by camels, or, of late, by the water-train. It is difficult to realize the fact of a town of this size being entirely without fresh water until now, which accounts for the absence of the least kind of vegetation. The next morning a steamer took our party early to the wells of Moses, about nine miles up the gulf, where they landed, being carried through the surf by the Chinese rowers. Each of the wells is enclosed in a little fence, and belongs to a Suez merchant. It is a wonderful spot, so green and so lovely in the midst of such utter desolation. There are dates and banians, roses and pomegranates, salads and other vegetables, all growing in the greatest luxuriance. Long strings of camels filed across the sand on their way to Mount Sinai, and the coloring of the mountains was exquisite. The shore was covered with coral and shells. After spending an hour or two there, and reading the Bible account of the spot, our travellers returned to the ship, and went across the gulf to see the exact place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea when pursued by Pharaoh. The view was beautiful, and the Hill of Barda stood out brightly with its jagged points dear and purple against the glowing sky. The Catholics have a small church at Suez, but are building a larger one, as their mission is greatly on the increase.
Our travellers returned that evening to Cairo and for the first time slept on board their boats, or daha-biéh. The first sensation was of discomfort at the smallness of the cabins; but soon they got used to their floating homes, and the beauty of the weather enabled them to live all day long on the awning-covered poop; so that they soon ceased to feel cramped and uncomfortable. The following day, the wind being contrary, Latifa Pasha, the head of the Admiralty, gave them a steamer to tow them up to Gizeh, from whence they were to visit the Pyramids. The excessive depth of each stone makes the ascent an arduous one for women; but the view amply repays one for the exertion. On one side is the interminable desert; on the other, the fertile "Land of Goshen." Owing to the recent inundations, the party had continually to dismount from their donkeys and be carried across the water on men's backs. The next few days passed quickly, our travellers landing every morning to walk and sketch, while the men were "tracking" along the shore, and making acquaintance with all the people and places of interest as they passed. At El-Atfeh was a remarkable dervish of the tribe they had seen "dancing" in Cairo, who showed them his house, in the court of which was the tomb of his predecessor, hung with ostrich-eggs, canoes and other votive offerings, but hideously painted in bright green. At Bibbeh there was a very fine Coptic church, with a picture of St. George and the Dragon, who is the favorite saint throughout the East, and venerated alike by Christian and Moslem. Again, on their way to Minieh, they passed by a fine Coptic convent on the top of a {772} cliff, and two of the monks swam to the boats to ask for alms and offerings, which are never refused them. On the 20th December they reached Sawada, which is a village somewhat inland, but containing a large Coptic convent and church, served by six priests, and with a congregation of upwards of 1000 Christians. It was also an important burial-place, and there were multitudes of little domes looking like children's sand-basins reversed, but each surmounted with a cross. One of the ladies was sketching this picturesque village from a palm-grove at the entrance of the principal gateway, when a venerable priest approached her and made that sign which in the East is the freemasonry of brotherhood--the sign of the Cross. The lady instantly responded, and the old priest, joyfully clapping his hands, led her into the church, showing her all its carious carvings and decorations, and several very ancient MSS. There are some fine mountains at the back, in which the gentlemen of the party discovered some wolves. The next day brought them to Beni-Hassan. The caves, which are about three miles from the shore, were originally used as tombs by the ancient Egyptians, and are covered with paintings and hieroglyphics; but their chief interest arises from their having been the great hiding-place of the Christians during the persecutions, and also used as cells by St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and other anchorites. A little farther on, near Manfaloot, is the cave of St. John the Hermit, venerated to this hour as such by the natives. On Christmas-day our travellers arrived at Sioot, and found there a Catholic church served by the Franciscan mission, which is under the special protection of the Emperor of Austria, who has sent some very good pictures for the altars there. The mass was reverently and well sang, and about 150 Catholics were present. After mass, the Italian padre gave them coffee. He had been educated at the "Propaganda," but had been twenty-four years in Egypt; so that he had almost forgotten every language except Arabic. He said that they had now obtained a union with the Copts, and a Coptic mass followed the Latin one. The mission had been established at Sioot four years before, by the intervention of Said Pasha, but had encountered great opposition at first from the Moslems. Two bodies of Christian saints with all the signs of martyrdom had been lately discovered in the caves above the town; but the Mohammedans would not allow the Christians to have them. The good old Franciscan had studied medicine, and thus first made his way among the people. Now he seems to be universally respected and beloved.
Our party rode through the dirty bazaars of this so-called capital of Upper Egypt, and ascended to the caves. But the "City of the Dead", a little beyond the town, is mournfully beautiful and silent. It is composed of streets of tombs, of white stone or marble, the only sign of life being the jar of water left in front of each, to water the aloes planted in picturesque vases at the gate of each tomb. A whole poem might be written on the thoughts suggested by those silent streets. It was this "City of the Dead" which is said to have occasioned the valuable lesson given by St. Macarius to the young man who had asked him "how he could best learn indifference to the world's opinion?" He directed him to go to this place, and first upbraid and then flatter the dead. The young man did as he was bid. When he came back, the saint asked him "what answer they had made?" The young man replied, "None at all." Then said St. Macarius: "Go and learn from them neither to be moved by injuries or flatteries. If you thus die to the world and to yourself, you will begin to live to Christ."
Here for the first time our travellers realized the horrors of an Egyptian conscription. A number of villagers coming in to the Sunday's market were at once seized, chained together, and thrown on the ground like so much "dead stock" to be packed off on board a government vessel, when the fall complement had been secured. The screams and howls of their wives and daughters, throwing dirt on their heads and tearing their hair, in token of despair, when their frantic efforts to release them from the recruiting-sergeants were found ineffectual, were most piteous to hear. The poor fellows rarely survive to return to their homes; and their pay and food are so miserably small and scanty, that to be made a soldier is looked upon as worse than death. They maim themselves in every way to escape it--cutting off their forefingers, putting out their eyes, and the like. Scarcely a man on board the boats is not mutilated in this manner. In the evening, being Christmas-day, all the boats were illuminated with Chinese lanterns and avenues of palms; while the sailors made crosses and stars of palm-leaves, to hang over the cabin-doors. A beautiful moon-light night added to the effect of these decorations, as the party rowed round the different dahabièhs, and the "Adeste fidelis" sounded softly across the water. The following morning, after early mass, a favorable wind carried them on to Ekhnim, where there is also a Catholic Franciscan missionary and church. The priest was a Neapolitan, and had begun his labors at Suez. His only companion was a native Copt, who had been educated at the Propaganda. They had about five hundred Catholics in their congregation, and a school of about fifty children. The church was of the fifteenth century, and under the protection of a Christian sheik, to whom our travellers were introduced, and who courteously invited them into his house. The courtyard of the Catholic church was crowded with native Christians who had escaped from the conscription, and were safe under the roof of the priest. The sheik conducted his guests to his house, the only good one in Ekhnim, and furnished more or less in European style, as he had been at Cairo, and attached to the household of the late viceroy. They sat on the divan, with pipes and coffee, talking Italian with the priest, when the sheik, as a great honor, allowed them to see his wife, and afterward his daughter, a bride of thirteen, married to the son of the Copt bishop. She was dressed in red, as a bride, with a red veil and a profusion of gold ornaments and coins strung round her neck and arms. The sheik and the whole population escorted our travellers back to their boats with every demonstration of respect, and then the principal chiefs with the priests were invited to come on board and have coffee, which they accepted. The Franciscan father had been for seven years at Castellamare, and felt the change terribly, but said that the climate was good, and that the comfort of feeling he was working for God strengthened his hands when he was inclined to despond. He complained of the lamentable ignorance of the Coptic priests, who knew nothing of the history of their interesting old churches and convents, and only tell you "they were built before their fathers were born!" The two large Coptic convents formerly existing in the mountains above the town are deserted; but their church at Ekhnim is the oldest now remaining in Egypt, and full of curious carving and very ancient pillars.
On New Year's day our travellers arrived at Denderah, and spent it in the wonderful temple of Athor. The heat was very great, and it required some courage to attempt to sketch. At five the following morning the boats arrived at Keneh, and some of the party went on shore to mass, that being also a Franciscan station. The church is small, but very nicely kept; the place is, however, unhealthy, and the good Franciscan father was very low at the mortality among his comrades. He has lately started a school and has about twenty children; but his life is a very desolate one, having {774} no European to speak to, or any one to sympathize in his work. After mass he took our travellers to see the making of the goolehs, or water-bottles, which are so famous throughout Egypt, and are made solely in this place, of the peculiar clay of the district, mixed with the ashes of the halfeh grass. They are beautiful in form, and keep the water deliciously cool. After a breakfast of coffee and excellent dates at the sheik's house, the party reëmbarked, and arrived that evening at Negaddi. Here again they found a Catholic mission. The superior, Padre Samuele, had been laboring there for twenty-three years. He was of the Lyons mission, and was the only one who had survived the climate. Four of his brethren had died within the last twelvemonth, and he had just dug a grave for the last. They had a large and devout congregation, and a school of one hundred and fifty children, and had been building a new church of very fine and good proportions. But now the good father has to labor and live alone. He said, however, that he had written to Europe for fresh workers, whom he was anxiously expecting. Negaddi is remarkable for its turreted pigeon-houses, painted white and red, which form an amusing contrast to the miserable mudholes in which the inhabitants live. The following evening found our travellers at Thebes. The town itself is a surprise and disappointment. There are literally no shops, no bazaar, no houses but the two or three belonging to the consuls, and built in the midst of the temples. But the said temples are unrivalled for interest and beauty. Karnac, either by daylight or moonlight, is a thing apart from all others in the world for vastness of conception and magnificence of design. "There were giants in those days." The same may be said of the Tombs of the Kings, of the Vocal Memnon, of the Memnouium, of Medemet Haboo, and the rest. The marvel is, what has become of the people who created such things; who had brought civilization, arts, and manufactures to such perfection that nothing modern can surpass them. Is it not a lesson to our pride and our materialism, when we think of them and of ourselves, and then see the degraded state of the modern Egyptian, the utter extinction of the commonest art or even handicraft among them, so that it is scarcely possible, even in Cairo, to get an ordinary deal table made with a drawer in it? There is no Catholic mission at Thebes, but a Coptic bishop, who received our travellers very kindly, showed them his church, and gave them coffee on a terrace overlooking the Nile. This evening was "twelfth-night," and the boats were again illuminated and decorated with palms, the whole having a beautiful effect reflected in the water.
After spending a week at Thebes, Our travellers sailed on to Assouan, visiting the temples of Esneh, Edfoo, and Komom-Boo on their way, and coming into the region of crocodiles and pelicans, and of the Theban or dom palm--less graceful than the date palm, but still beautiful, and bearing a large, nut-like fruit in fine hanging clusters. Between Edfoo and Thebes are shown some caves, in one of which St. Paul, the first hermit, passed so many years of penitence and prayer. He was discovered by St. Antony in his old age, when tempted to vain-glory, God having revealed to him that there was a recluse more perfect than himself, whom he was to go into the desert and seek. A beautiful picture in the gallery at Madrid by Velasquez represents the meeting of the two venerable saints, the dinner brought to them by the raven, and the final interment of St. Paul by St. Antony in the cloak of St. Athanasius, the lions assisting to dig the grave!
Assouan is, as it were, the gate of the Cataracts, and is on the borders of Nubia, the great desert of Syene being to the left of the village. The Nubian caravans were tented on the shore, and tempting the Europeans with daggers, knives, {775} ostrich-eggs, poisoned arrows, rhinoceros hide shields, lances and monkeys. The climate was delicious. There is no country in the world to be compared with Egypt at this time of the year, because, in spite of the heat, there is a lightness and exhilaration in the air which makes every one well and hungry. To an artist the coloring is equally perfect. No one who has not been there can imagine what the sunrises and sunsets are, especially the after-glow at sunset. No artificial red, orange, or purple can approach it. Then the gracefulness of the palms on the banks, the rosy color of the mountains, the picturesque sakeels or water-wheels, and the still prettier shadoof, with its mournful sound, which seems as the wail of the patient slave who works it day and night, and thereby produces the exquisite tender green vegetation on the banks of the river, due to this artificial irrigation alone--all are a continual feast to the eye of the painter. And if all this is felt below Assouan, what can be said of Philae--beautiful Philae--that "dream of loveliness," as a modern writer justly calls it?
Our travellers, while waiting for the interminable arrangements with the Reis of the Cataracts, took the road along the shore; and after passing through a succession of curious and picturesque villages, arrived at one called Mahatta, where they hired a little boat to take them across to the beautiful island. Rocks of the most fantastic shapes are piled up on both sides of the shore; but when once you have emerged from these into the deep water, "Pharaoh's Bed" and the other temples stand out against the sky in all their wonderful beauty. Philae was the burial-place of Osiris, and "By him who sleeps in Philae" was the common oath of the old Egyptians. The temples are too well known by drawings to need description; but what is less often mentioned by travellers is that the larger one, originally dedicated to the sun, was used for a long time by the Christians as a church. Consecration crosses are deeply engraved on every one of these grand old pillars; and at one end is an altar, with a cross in the centre, in white marble, and a piscina at the side, with a niche for the sacred elements; and above this recess is a beautiful cross deeply cut in the stone, together with the emblem of the vine. The cross is also let into the principal gateways. There was an Italian inscription commemorating the arrival of the first Roman mission sent by Gregory XVI., and a tablet in French recording the arrival of the French army there under Napoleon in 1799, signed by General Davoust.
The gentlemen of the party decided to pitch their tents in the island till the question of the passing of the Cataracts was decided; and while this operation was going on, one of the ladies sat down to sketch. She was quietly painting, luxuriating in the beauty and silence around her, and watching the sun setting gloriously behind the temple, when all of a sudden a deep bell boomed across the water and was repeated half-a-dozen times. It was the "Angelus." Even the least Catholic of the party was struck and impressed by this unexpected sound, so unusual in a country where bells are unknown, and the only call for prayer is from the minaret top. Instinctively they knelt, and then arose the question "Where could the bell come from?" There was no sign of habitation or human beings either on the island itself or on the opposite shores, and the dragoman himself was equally at fault. At last, on questioning the boatmen, they found that behind some hills a short distance off was a convent--sort of "convalescent home" for the sick monks of the Barri mission. The English lady decided at once to go and see it, and on arriving at the long low stone building, found that the Franciscan father, who was almost its solitary occupant, had just returned from the White Nile, being one of a mission to the blacks in the Barri country, a month's journey south of Khartoun. {776} He had been at death's door from fever; and on leaving Khartoun for Philae, an eighteen days' ride on camels, had been attacked by dysentery, and left for dead in the burning desert by the caravan; only a faithful black convert remained by his side, and he felt that his last hour was come; when the arrival of poor Captain Speke, on his way home from one of his last explorations, changed the state of things. With true Christian charity our countryman at once ordered a halt, and devoted himself to the nursing and doctoring of the dying monk; so that in a few days he was so far recovered as to be able to resume his journey, and arrived safely at Philae. He said he owed his life, under God, entirely to the kindness of this Englishman; and his only anxiety seemed to be to show his gratitude by doing everything he could for those of his nation. He invited our travellers to take up their abode in the convent, and gave them a most interesting account of the missionary work of his order. They have chartered a small vessel, which they have called the "Stella Matutina," and which plies up and down the river, and enables them to visit their stations on each bank. But they have every kind of hardship to encounter from the treachery or stupidity or positive hostility of the different tribes, from the intense heat, and above all, from the deadly malaria which had carried off seventy of their brothers in three years. But there are ever fresh soldiers of this noble army ready and eager to fill up the ranks.
The ladies rode home by the way of the desert, and reached their boats in safety. The next morning, at five o'clock, the same road was resumed by two of the party who were anxious to to reach the convent in time for the early mass. They met nothing on their seven-miles' ride but a hyaena, who was devouring a camel which they had left dying the night before. The little convent chapel was very nice; and among the vestments sent by the oeuvre apostolique and worked by the ladies of the Leopoldstadt mission, one of the party recognized a court-dress which had been presented for the purpose by a Hungarian friend of hers at Rome. It was strange to find it again in the depths of Nubia. The mass was served by two little woolly-haired negro boys from the good old father's school, whose attachment to him was like that of a dog to its master. He was in some trouble as to finding clothes for them. The Nubians dispense with every thing of the kind except a fringed leathern girdle round the loins, decorated with shells. The children have not even that. However, in the dahabièh a piece of rhododendron-patterned chintz was found, carefully sent from England for the covering of the divans; and with that, certain articles of dress were manufactured, gorgeous in coloring, and therefore perfect in native eyes, however ludicrous and incongruous they might appear to Europeans. The following day was fixed for one of the boats to go up the cataracts, and the party started early for what is called the "first gate," to see the operation. No one who has not lived for some months with this "peuple criard," as Lamartine calls them, can imagine the din and screaming of the Arabs as each dangerous rapid is passed; the Reis all the time shouting and storming and leaping from one stone to the other like one possessed. But the ascent is child's play compared to the descent. So many accidents have happened in the latter, and so many boats have been swamped, that the captains now insist on the passengers landing on an island near, while their boats rush down the rapids. It is a beautiful sight, the way those apparently unwieldy vessels are steered, and clear the rocks as it were with a bound, amidst the frantic yells and cheers of the whole population. A number of men, for a trifling baksheesh, swam down the current on logs; one with his little child before him; but an Englishman, attempting {777} to do it a year or two ago, was caught in the whirlpool and instantly drowned. After watching this exciting operation, the party dined together at Philae in their tent, and then rowed round and round the island by moonlight, which exceeded in loveliness all they had hitherto seen; the vividness of the reflections were beyond belief; and reading or writing was easy in the brilliant light.
Our traveller availed herself of the kind Father Michael Angelo's proposal, and slept at the convent. He gave them some curious arms, and hippopotamus-teeth from the White Nile, and some ostrich-eggs arranged as drinking-vessels, with shells and leather strips: his sole furniture in his native tent. The English, in return, gave him a quantity of medicines, which he eagerly accepted for his mission, to which he was hoping to return. After early mass the next day, he escorted them to see the Island of Biggeh with its picturesque temple, and then to the quarries of Syene, where an uncut obelisk of great size still remains embedded in the sand. Some idea was entertained in England of using it for Prince Albert's monument; but the difficulty of carriage and the distance from the river would make its transfer almost impossible. Far simpler would be the proposal of taking the Luxor obelisk, already given to the English by Mehemet Ali, the sister one to that successfully transported to Paris by the French. It is a thousand pities to leave it where it is, and to miss the occasion of adding so unique and valuable a monument to our art-treasures.
This, the last day of our traveller's stay at Assouan, was spent in making a few last purchases, visiting the old castle overlooking the river, and exploring the island of Elephantine, which offers beautiful sketching. But the inhabitants are even more importunate as beggars than their confraternity at Thebes; and it required all the eloquence of the good priest to prevent their appropriating the contents of the traveller's paint-box. She purchased from them many strings of bright beads, which constitute their sole idea of female dress. A curious funeral took place in the evening, an empty boat being carried for the dead man, who was buried with his arms and his spear; while a funeral dirge was sung over him by his tribe. It was curious, as being identical with the hieroglyphics of similar scenes in the tombs of the kings. Many of the customs of these people are purely pagan; for instance, when an Arab makes his coffee, he pours out the first three cups on the ground as a libation to the sheik, who first invented the beverage. The slave-trade, though nominally abolished by the viceroy, is carried on vigorously at Assouan. The governor goes through the form of confiscating the cargo and arresting the owners of the ship; but, after a few days, a handsome baksheesh on the part of the slave-owner and captain settles the matter; and their live cargo is transported to Cairo, there to be disposed of in the harems or elsewhere.
To the Catholic traveller in this country nothing can be more melancholy than the utterly degraded condition of the people, who are really very little removed from the brute creation. Years of ill-usage, hardship, and wrong have ground down the Fellah to the abject condition of a slave; and the utter extinction of Christianity among them seems to preclude all hope of their rising again. Yet Egypt was once the home of saints. From Alexandria, the seat of all that was most learned and refined, the see of St. Athanasius, and St. Alexander, and St. Cyril, and St. John the Almoner, and a whole string of holy patriarchs, bishops, and martyrs, up to the very desert of Syene, peopled with anchorites, the whole land teemed with saints. And now, the little handful of Franciscan fathers, scattered here and there, sowing once more the good seed at the cost of their lives, is all that remains to bear witness to the truth.
[ORIGINAL.]
CONTRASTS
ARTS OF CONSTRUCTION.
In considering the building arts, as practised by the inhabitants of this country in past ages, we must necessarily divide the subject according to epochs. The ethnologist would of course begin with his favorite scientific classification of the Stone, the Bronze and the Iron periods; but this division is, to say the least of it, a very arbitrary, very indefinite, and very doubtful one. It leaves much too wide a scope for imagination, and offers no satisfactory explanation of social development; and the following obvious and natural order of periods, in the present instance, will answer our purpose, namely:
1. The Pre-Christian period, extending from some indefinite epoch of the pre-historic ages, down to the establishment of Christianity in Ireland, in the fifth century; 2. The early Christian period, extending from the last-mentioned epoch to the commencement of the Danish wars, in the beginning of the ninth century; 3. The period of obscurity and barbarism into which this country was plunged by those fierce and long-protracted wars, and from which it began to emerge in the reign of Brian, and after the battle of Clontarf, in 1014; 4. The period which followed that just mentioned, and which extends beyond the Anglo-Norman invasion until the native Irish ceased to act as a distinct people; and, [sic--no 5.] 6. The period which was inaugurated by the aforesaid Anglo-Norman epoch, and descended to modern times, embracing the ages, first of noble Gothic abbeys, and feudal keeps of Norman barons, and walled towns; and then of the fortified bawns and strong solitary towers of new proprietors, in the Tudor, Stuart, and Williamite times.
In the first of these periods there was no stone and mortar masonry known in Ireland, nor was there any knowledge of the arch. Of cyclopean masonry--masonry in which huge stones were frequently employed, but never any cement--some stupendous and wonderful examples belonging to this first period still remain; but there was no cemented work. This we may take as absolutely certain, notwithstanding the notions of some modern antiquaries about the supposed pre-Christian origin of the round towers. This pagan theory of the round towers is a pure creation of what we may call the conjectural school of Irish antiquaries. The ancient Irish never dreamt of it. It was suggested at a time when scarcely anything was known of the original native source of Irish history; and it has seldom been advocated except by those who are either still unacquainted with these sources of our history, or else who are carried away by false ideas of early Irish civilization, and visionary theories of ancient Irish fire-worship and Orientalism; for all which there is not the slightest foundation in the actual history of the country. It is right that this should be distinctly understood: without entering into lengthened arguments on the subject, which would be out of place here, it ought to be quite sufficient for any rational person to know, that the character of all the remains of undoubted pagan buildings in Ireland is utterly inconsistent with the {781} supposition that the same people who built them also built the round towers; and that such knowledge as we actually possess of the manners and customs of the pagan Irish shows the absurdity of the notion that the round towers were built by them. The passages of ancient Irish writings which may be adduced to show that the round towers were built by Christians are extremely numerous, while there is not one single iota of evidence in the written monuments of Irish history, either printed or MS., for their pagan origin--nothing, in fact, but wild, unsupported conjecture and imagination. And such being the case, and all the writings and researches of such distinguished Irish historical scholars as Petrie, O'Donovan, and O'Curry, who have passed away, and of Wilde and Todd, and Graves and Reeves, and Ferguson, etc., tending to overturn the visionary theories of Irish antiquities, of which the round tower phantasy has been the most noted, it is time to abandon this last remnant of a false and exploded system.
What, then, are the remains which we have of the buildings or structures of the ancient Irish belonging to the first, or pagan, period? They are various, and exceedingly numerous. In the first place, there are the raths, or earthen forts, with which the whole face of the country is still absolutely dotted. These raths were the dwelling-places of the Irish, not only indeed, in pagan times, but much more recently. They were originally rather steep earthworks, surrounded by a ditch, and topped by a strong paling or stockade; sometimes there was a double or treble line of intrenchment, and within the inner fence the family or families of the occupants dwelt in timber or hurdle houses, of which, from the perishable nature of the materials, no traces of course remain. The cattle, too, were driven for safety within the inclosure, when it was known that an enemy was abroad; and it is probable that the position of a great many of the raths on a sloping surface was selected for purposes of drainage, seeing that the cattle were so frequently to be inclosed. It is also worthy of note, that these earthen forts were always polygonal, generally octagonal, and we have never seen one of them actually round; although it would have been much easier to describe the plain circle than the regular polygonal figure adopted.
When the inclosures were constructed of stone; they were called cahirs or cashels. It has been stated by antiquaries that the stone forts were built by the early Irish colonists, called Firbolgs, and the earthen forts by the subsequent colony of Tuath de Danaans; but it is probable that each colony built their strongholds of the materials which they found most convenient. In the rich plains of Meath, where there are very few surface stones that could have been employed for the purpose, we find none but earthen forts; and in the Isles of Arran, where there is little indeed besides solid rock, the Firbolgs necessarily constructed their famous duns of stone. These vast Firbolg duns of Arran must have been impregnable in those days, if defended by sufficient garrison; and their size and number in a place so small and barren show that almost the whole remnant of the race must have been compelled by hard necessity to seek shelter there against their pressing foes. It would also appear that the abundant supply of stone induced the occupants of those Arran forts to substitute stone houses in their interior for the habitations of timber and wattles used elsewhere; as we here find numerous remains of the small beehive houses, called cloghanes, formed by the overlapping of flat stones, laid horizontally, until they meet at top, thus roofing in the house without an arch. Both cloghanes and forts are built, of course, without cement; and no one could for a moment imagine that the Round Tower, of which a portion still {782} remains in the largest island, could possibly have been the work of the same masons.
The style of building is the same in the Duns of Aran; in Staig Fort, in Kerry; in the Greenan of Aileach, in Donegal; and in general in any of the primitive cahirs or cashels, wherever they exist in Ireland; nor is there any material difference between these and the similar structures to be found in Wales--such as the Castell-Caeron over Dolbenmaen, in Caernarvonshire.
The same Irish word, Saor, (pronounced Seer,) originally signified both a carpenter and a mason; and in an Irish poem, at least eight hundred and fifty years old, we have a list of the ancient builders, who erected the principal strongholds of pagan times in Ireland: such as--"Casruba, the high-priced cashel-builder, who employed quick axes to smoothen stones;" and "Rigriu and Garvon, son of Ugarv, the cashel-builders of Aileach," and "Troiglethan, who sculptured images, and was the rath-builder of the Hill of Tara;" while every one familiar with the native Irish traditions has heard the name of Grubban-Saor, to whose skill half the ancient castles of Ireland were, without any reference to chronology, supposed to owe their strength.
An Irish antiquary of the seventeenth century, who enjoyed the friendship of Sir James Ware, writes as if he believed that the ancient pagan Irish understood the use of cement, although, as he confesses, no vestige of stone and mortar work by them remained in his day. But his mode of arguing, as it will be perceived, is very inconclusive. After enumerating several of the ancient raths and cashels of Ireland, he writes: "We have evidence of their having been built like the edifices of other kingdoms of the times in which they were built; and why should they not? for there came no colony into Erin but from the eastern world, as from Spain, etc.; and it would be strange if such a deficiency of intellect should mark the parties who came into Ireland, as that they should not have the sense to form their residences and dwellings after the manner of the countries from which they went forth, or through which they travelled." [See Introduction to Dudley Mac Firbis's great "Book of Genealogies," translated in "O'Curry's Lectures," pp. 222, etc.] It is quite certain that the early colonizers of Ireland, to whom Mac Firbis thus alludes, were a portion of that great Celtic wave of population which passed from East to West over Europe, leaving the same earthern mounds and cyclopean stone structures behind as monuments wherever they went; but it is equally certain, that if these ancient colonies visited Assyria, and Egypt, and Greece in their peregrinations, as Mac Firbis believed they did, they did not carry with them Assyrian, or Egyptian, or Grecian masonry or architecture into Ireland. The raths and cashels which they constructed were exceedingly simple in their character, and in very few indeed of the former is there the slightest grace of stonework to be discovered. Caves were very often formed under the raths; and Mac Firbis states that under the rath of Bally O Dowda, in Tireragh, he himself had seen "nine smooth stone cellars," and that its walls were still of the height of "a good cow-keep." Nor were the contents of the ancient Irish dwellings less simple than the buildings themselves; for we find by the Brehon Laws that "the Seven valuables of the house of a chieftain were--a caldron, vat, goblet, mug, reins, horse-bridle, and pin;" the first-mentioned articles indicating clearly the usages of hospitality, which always formed the predominating institution of the Irish. The same book of Brehon Laws refers to "a house with four doors, and a stream through the centre, to be provided for the sick"--such, apparently, being the ideas at that time of what a hospital should be.
It is hard to say when the popular notion originated which attributes the ancient raths and mounds to the Danes. It is quite dear that Mac Firbis knew very well they were not Danish, though the idea must have prevailed when he wrote, (A.D. 1650;) for his contemporary, Lord Castlehaven, speaks of withdrawing his troops, during the civil war of 1645, within one of the "Danish forts," which were so numerous in the country; and such was the fashion of attributing all our antiquities to a people who had impressed the memory of the nation with such terrible and indelible traditions of themselves, that even Archdeacon Lynch, the author of "Cambrensis Eversus," supposes the Danes to have been the builders of the round towers. Dr. Molyneux, who wrote toward the close of the same century, treats us to a whole book about "the Danish Forts and Mounds;" but we know perfectly well that the Danes of Ireland resided only in the seaport towns and their vicinities, and had no dwellings, and consequently no raths or mounds in the interior of the country.
Besides the earthen and stone forts, which, it must be remembered, were inhabited in the early Christian as well as in the pagan times, and down to a period which it is impossible now to define, we have several remains of the early Irish habitations, called cranogues. These were small stockaded and generally artificial islands, in the smaller lakes, and were only accessible by means of boats, ancient specimens of which, hewn out of a single tree, have been found in the vicinity of the cranogues in recent times. Some of these cranogues are known to have been occupied in comparatively modern times; and the strong timber stakes by which they were generally surrounded are, in a few instances, still found singularly fresh, and with indications of having been connected by a strong framework.
Of the state of the building arts in Ireland during the early Christian period we are enabled to form a tolerably accurate idea, both by the large number of remains still existing, and by the notices on the subject which we find in historical documents. Many of the very earliest Christian edifices devoted to religion in Ireland were built of stone; but it is clear, nevertheless, that the national fashion was to construct them of timber; and this fashion the Irish had in common with the Britons, or, we should rather say, with the Celtic nations generally. Strabo says the houses of the Gauls were constructed of poles and wattle work; and we learn from Bede, that among the Britons building with stone was regarded as a characteristic Roman practice. We know that both in Ireland and Britain there was a national prejudice in favor of the custom of employing timber to construct their churches. The first three churches erected in Ireland--those, namely, constructed by St. Palladius in his unsuccessful mission immediately before St Patrick--were of oak. Long after this time, in the sixth century, St. Columba lived in a wooden cell in the island of Hy, as his biographer, St. Adamnan, relates; and the use of timber for their religious edifices was much in favor with the Columbian monks wherever they settled. So late as the year 1142, when St. Malachy was building the church of the famous Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont, in Louth, he received some opposition from one of the local magnates, because he had undertaken to erect it in an expensive and solid manner of stone; the argument of this person being, that "they were Scots, not Frenchmen," and that a wooden oratory in the old Irish fashion would have sufficed.
It is a curious circumstance connected with this Abbey of Mellifont, that it is the only Irish edifice of a date older than the Anglo-Norman period in the ruins of which Dr. Petrie discovered any bricks to have been used; and we know that it was erected by monks whom St. Malachy had sent to study in the monastery of St. Bernard, in France; whence the allusion to {784} Frenchmen made by the Irishman who had objected to the style of the building. Still it is plain that the ecclesiastical edifices of stone were very numerous in the country at that very time; for a few years after St. Gelasius, the Archbishop of Armagh, caused a limekiln of vast dimensions to be constructed, in order, as the annalists say, to make lime for the repairs of the churches of Armagh which had been allowed to fall into decay.
The primitive wooden churches were, at least in some instances, constructed of planed boards, and were thatched with reeds, the walls being also frequently protected by a covering of reeds, for which, in later times, a sheeting of lead was sometimes substituted. This use of lead sheeting became very general in England; but we may presume that it was employed in comparatively few cases in Ireland. Sometimes, instead of boards or hewn timber, wattles were employed, and these were plastered with mud, the wattles being formed of strong twigs interlaced. We shall presently see that the use of wattles for building purposes was in vogue in Ireland up to comparatively modern times. It is stated in the life of St. Patrick, that when that apostle visited Tyrawley, in the county of Sligo, finding that timber was not abundant, he erected a church of mud--so ancient is the custom of employing that material for building in Ireland--a material, however, which never could be rendered as suitable for the purpose in our moist climate, as it is found to be in some of the southern portions of Europe.
From the very introduction of Christianity, we repeat, stone and mortar were frequently employed for the building of churches in Ireland. A building of this description was always called in Irish Damhliag, a word literally signifying "stone church." This term is still preserved in the name of Duleek in the county of Meath, where the old stone church so called, and which is supposed, on good authority, to have been the very first such edifice erected in Ireland, is still in good preservation; it was built by St. Kienan, a disciple of St. Patrick, who died in 490; and its age is thus established beyond any doubt. The stone building, or Damhliag, as Dr. Petrie has remarked, is always latinized by the old Irish writers templum, ecclesia, or basilica; while the wooden building is simply called oratorium.
The ancient Irish churches are almost invariably small, seldom exceeding 80 feet in length, and not usually being more than 60 feet. The great church or cathedral of Armagh was originally 140 feet long; but this was almost a solitary exception. The smaller churches are simple oblong quadrangles, while in the larger ones there is a second and smaller quadrangle at the east end, which was the chancel or sanctuary, and which is separated from the nave by a large semicircular arch. The entrance door was always originally in the west end, and square-headed, the top lintel being generally formed of a single very large flat stone; but in every instance the square-headed western doorway was in process of time built up, and another doorway, in the pointed style, opened in the south wall, near its western extremity. The windows are extremely small, and very few, generally not more than three, two of which are in the sanctuary, and all being in the south wall; they are frequently triangular-headed, formed by two flat stones leaning against each other; and it is probable that in many cases they were never glazed. The sides of the doorways and windows are inclined, in the manner of the cyclopean buildings--a style of architecture with which they have more than one point in common; for enormous stones are frequently used, the single stone being made to form both faces of the wall. Polygonal stones are employed, without any attempt to build in courses; and even flat stones are often placed at angles, when, with the aid of very little skill, they might have {785} been placed horizontally; while another singular feature often to be observed in the oldest Irish stone churches is, that the side walls and ends are built up independently, and not bound together at the corners by any interlapping stones. All these peculiarities are to be found, in a very marked degree, in the extremely curious specimens of seventh and eighth century buildings in the South Islands of Arran; and, with the exception of some Christian cloghanes, and some stone-roofed oratories like those near Dingle, all these early Christian edifices have been built with lime cement.
From the rudeness of the masonry in the buildings of the early Christian period, a very curious argument has been adduced in favor of the Pagan origin of the Round Towers. Some persons, in fact, do not hesitate to argue that, as the Round Towers frequently exhibit a better style of masonry than the ruined churches in their neighborhood, they must have been erected by some earlier race of builders, thus adopting the very opposite to the correct and natural conclusion which the premises would suggest. Such persons must have a very misty idea of Irish history; they do not appear to be aware that there is no country in Europe, except Greece and Rome, of which the ancient history can boast of such a clear and consecutive series of written and traditional annals as that of Ireland. This is the acknowledged opinion of the most learned investigators. There is, then, no room whatever for any such conjectural race or epoch as that which the theory in question would suppose in Irish history; there is no room for such wild hypotheses as may be framed, for instance, to account for the remains of extinct civilized races in the interior of North America. Any one who has the singularly distinct chain of ancient Irish chronicles present to his mind must be aware of this fact, and must know perfectly well that there was no mysterious unknown race in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity who could have built the round towers--even if it were probable that such a race would have built these, and left no other fragment of stone and mortar work in the land! As to the disparity sometimes to be observed in the masonry of the towers and the ancient churches beside them, it can be explained without any such absurd hypothesis. It is clear from the mouldings of the windows, and other architectural details, and even from the statements of our annalists, that some of the Round Towers are not older than the eleventh or twelfth century, and consequently their masonry might well be superior to that of churches built some four or five hundred years before them. But, even when the builders were contemporary, they were not such dull craftsmen as not to have understood perfectly well that a more careful style of workmanship was required in an edifice which they should carry to a height of 120 or 130 feet than in one of which the walls would not exceed 10 or 14 feet in elevation. In fact, a little consideration must show any enlightened man that the theory to which we have referred is utterly untenable.
Mr. Parker, a high authority on questions of architectural antiquity, has, in his valuable series of papers on the subject in the "Gentleman's Magazine," thrown considerable light on Irish mediaeval architecture. One point, of which he has been decidedly the first observer, is, that all the details of an ancient building in Ireland seldom or never belong to the period at which the building was, according to record, erected. This is an extremely carious fact; and there can be no doubt of Mr. Parker's accuracy on the point; but it appears to us that he invariably finds his remark verified in castles and abbeys of the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland. To what, then, is the peculiarity to be attributed? Could the architects have been Irish, and could they have adopted their principles from the study of older edifices {786} in England? On this point we are not aware that he comes to any conclusion; but, in describing the interesting details of Cormac's Chapel, on the Rock of Cashel--one of the most valuable remains of mediaeval architecture in the empire, and which was built some fifty years before the Anglo-Norman invasion--he says, "It is neither earlier nor later in style than buildings of the same date in England; and with the exception of a few particulars, agrees in detail with them." From this we may conclude, that before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans the Irish architects were fully up to the contemporary state of their art, though subsequently the Anglo-Irish fell into the anachronisms which Mr. Parker so frequently points out.
When Henry II. resolved on spending the Christmas of 1171 in Dublin, there was no building in that old capital of the Ostmen sufficiently spacious to accommodate his court; and a pavilion was accordingly constructed for the purpose of plastered wattles, in the Irish fashion, on a site at the south side of the present Dame street This mode of constructing houses must have been very convenient in times when the face of a country was liable every other year to be devastated by war, and when it would have been folly to erect a habitation intended to be permanent. The destruction of all the dwellings in a territory at that time, was not quite so ruinous a catastrophe as it might seem to us, especially as it was a very usual thing to have the granaries under ground.
The employment of wattles for one purpose or other, in the construction of buildings, appears to have been very long retained in Ireland; and they seem to have been constantly used by the masons as centering in the building of arches, as may be seen from an examination of any of the ruined abbeys or castles throughout the country, where the impression of the interwoven twigs will always be found in the mortar of the vaulted roofs and arches. Mr. Parker appears to have been particularly struck by this circumstance, which, however, is familiar to every Irish antiquary; but he tells us that he has found the same thing in a few instances in England.
A French gentleman, who travelled through Ireland in 1644, has left us a curious account of the mode of constructing their habitations employed at that time by the rural population. He writes: "The towns are built in the English fashion, but the houses in the country are in this manner: two stakes are fixed in the ground, across which is a transverse pole, to support two rows of rafters on the two sides, which are covered with leaves and straw. The cabins are of another fashion. There are four walls the height of a man, supporting rafters, over which they thatch with straw and leaves; they are without chimneys, and make the fire in the middle of the hut, which greatly incommodes those who are not fond of smoke."
The writer goes on to describe the fortified domiciles of the gentry. He says: "The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high, thatched with straw; but, to tell the truth, they are nothing but square towers without windows, or, at least, having such small apertures as to give no more light than there is in a prison; they have little furniture, and cover their room with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter; they put the rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches." (The Tour of M. De la Boullaye le Gouz.)
This description is applicable to those numerous, solitary, and gloomy buildings called castles, the ruins of which are so conspicuous in every part of the country, and a considerable number of which were erected by the Undertakers, in the reign of James I.; while it must be confessed that the mode of constructing the hovels of the peasantry, as described in the preceding extract, has not undergone much improvement, up to the present day, in many parts of Ireland.