But no; they
were so starved and weakened and broken down, that it had an injurious
effect upon them, and hurried them rapidly to their end. A week after
the passage quoted above was written, Count Strezelecki again writes,
and says he is sorry to report that the distress had increased; a thing
which could be hardly believed as possible. Melancholy cases of death on
the public roads and in the streets had become more frequent. The sudden
warmth of the weather, and the rays of a bright sun, accelerate
prodigiously the forthcoming end of those whose constitutions are
undermined by famine or sickness. "Yesterday," he writes, "a
countrywoman, between this and the harbour (one mile distance), walking
with four children, squatted against a wall, on which the heat and light
reflected powerfully; some hours after two of her children were corpses,
and she and the two remaining ones taken lifeless to the barracks.
To-day, in Westport, similar melancholy occurrences took place."[230]
Some years ago, during a visit to Westport, I received sad corroboration
of the truth of these statements. I met several persons who had
witnessed the Famine in that town and its neighbourhood, and their
relation of the scenes which fell under their notice not only sustained,
but surpassed, if possible, the facts given in the above communications.
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