The Aran Islands | Page 8

with four rowers and four oars on
either side, as each man uses two--and we set off a little before noon.
It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving
away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has
served primitive races since men first went to sea.
We had to stop for a moment at a hulk that is anchored in the bay, to
make some arrangement for the fish-curing of the middle island, and
my crew called out as soon as we were within earshot that they had a
man with them who had been in France a month from this day.
When we started again, a small sail was run up in the bow, and we set
off across the sound with a leaping oscillation that had no resemblance
to the heavy movement of a boat.
The sail is only used as an aid, so the men continued to row after it had
gone up, and as they occupied the four cross-seats I lay on the canvas at
the stern and the frame of slender laths, which bent and quivered as the
waves passed under them.
When we set off it was a brilliant morning of April, and the green,
glittering waves seemed to toss the canoe among themselves, yet as we
drew nearer this island a sudden thunderstorm broke out behind the
rocks we were approaching, and lent a momentary tumult to this still
vein of the Atlantic.
We landed at a small pier, from which a rude track leads up to the
village between small fields and bare sheets of rock like those in

Aranmor. The youngest son of my boatman, a boy of about seventeen,
who is to be my teacher and guide, was waiting for me at the pier and
guided me to his house, while the men settled the curagh and followed
slowly with my baggage.
My room is at one end of the cottage, with a boarded floor and ceiling,
and two windows opposite each other. Then there is the kitchen with
earth floor and open rafters, and two doors opposite each other opening
into the open air, but no windows. Beyond it there are two small rooms
of half the width of the kitchen with one window apiece.
The kitchen itself, where I will spend most of my time, is full of beauty
and distinction. The red dresses of the women who cluster round the
fire on their stools give a glow of almost Eastern richness, and the walls
have been toned by the turf-smoke to a soft brown that blends with the
grey earth-colour of the floor. Many sorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets
and oil-skins of the men, are hung upon the walls or among the open
rafters; and right overhead, under the thatch, there is a whole cowskin
from which they make pampooties.
Every article on these islands has an almost personal character, which
gives this simple life, where all art is unknown, something of the
artistic beauty of medieval life. The curaghs and spinning-wheels, the
tiny wooden barrels that are still much used in the place of earthenware,
the home-made cradles, churns, and baskets, are all full of individuality,
and being made from materials that are common here, yet to some
extent peculiar to the island, they seem to exist as a natural link
between the people and the world that is about them.
The simplicity and unity of the dress increases in another way the local
air of beauty. The women wear red petticoats and jackets of the island
wool stained with madder, to which they usually add a plaid shawl
twisted round their chests and tied at their back. When it rains they
throw another petticoat over their heads with the waistband round their
faces, or, if they are young, they use a heavy shawl like those worn in
Galway. Occasionally other wraps are worn, and during the
thunderstorm I arrived in I saw several girls with men's waistcoats
buttoned round their bodies. Their skirts do not come much below the
knee, and show their powerful legs in the heavy indigo stockings with
which they are all provided.
The men wear three colours: the natural wool, indigo, and a grey

flannel that is woven of alternate threads of indigo and the natural wool.
In Aranmor many of the younger men have adopted the usual
fisherman's jersey, but I have only seen one on this island.
As flannel is cheap--the women spin the yarn from the wool of their
own sheep, and it is then woven by a weaver in Kilronan for fourpence
a yard--the men seem to wear an indefinite number of waistcoats and
woollen drawers one over the other. They are usually surprised at the
lightness of my