When the open hold was filled with young cattle, packed as tightly
as they could stand, the owners with their wives or sisters, who go
with them to prevent extravagance in Galway, jumped down on the
deck, and the voyage was begun. Immediately afterwards a rickety old
hooker beat up with turf from Connemara, and while she was unlading
all the men sat along the edge of the pier and made remarks upon the
rottenness of her timber till the owners grew wild with rage.
The tide was now too low for more boats to come to the pier, so a
move was made to a strip of sand towards the south-east, where the
rest of the cattle were shipped through the surf. Here the hooker
was anchored about eighty yards from the shore, and a curagh was
rowed round to tow out the animals. Each bullock was caught in its
turn and girded with a sling of rope by which it could be hoisted on
board. Another rope was fastened to the horns and passed out to a
man in the stem of the curagh. Then the animal was forced down
through the surf and out of its depth before it had much time to
struggle. Once fairly swimming, it was towed out to the hooker and
dragged on board in a half-drowned condition.
The freedom of the sand seemed to give a stronger spirit of revolt,
and some of the animals were only caught after a dangerous struggle.
The first attempt was not always successful, and I saw one
three-year-old lift two men with his horns, and drag another fifty
yards along the sand by his tail before he was subdued.
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