Page:The Leadbeater Papers (1862) Vol 1.djvu/29

my days have been spent, and where I desire to end them.

Ballitore, in the county of Kildare, twenty-eight Irish miles from Dublin, is a village a little off the high road from Dublin to Cork. It is situated in a valley encompassed by gently rising hills, except where the river Griese takes its meandering course of about fourteen miles from its spring at Tubber, in the county of Wicklow, to its union with the Barrow near Jerusalem, a little hamlet in the county of Kildare. Ballitore derives its name from its former marshy condition (bally in Irish signifying a town or village, and togher a bog), from which it was reclaimed by drainage and careful cultivation. This fertile portion of land was purchased about the end of the seventeenth century by John Barcroft and Abel Strettel, respectable members of the Society of Friends. It is reported to have been very bare of wood till the new proprietors began to plant, which they did abundantly, and groves, orchards, and thick hedge-rows soon adorned the valley. In a work published in 1792, it is thus described:—"Within a mile of Timolin on the right, our eyes were enraptured with the most delicious situation, when through the lofty trees we beheld a variety of neat dwellings. Through a road that looked like a fine terrace-walk we hastened to this lovely spot, where nature assisted by art gave us the most perfect gratification. It is a colony of Quakers, called by the name of Ballitore. The river Griese winds its stream very near the houses; and the buildings, orchards, and gardens