justly celebrated lakes incline one to expect too much, and to overestimate their sublimity. This element, so ever present on the lakes of Scotland, is here often lacking. There is, however, a cleanliness in the remarkably irregular outline of their shores, and a beautiful decoration made by varying tinted and luxuriant vegetation, that largely compensates for a lack of vast boldness, and of great and precipitous rocky walls; and enough mountain views are in the near distance to give the scenery a majestic appearance, at times even grand in general effect. The heavy woodlands, with here and there a craggy cliff, as at the Eagle's Nest, combine to produce a charm not found about ordinary lakes. Yet it must in justice be said that our Lake George, and parts of Winnepiseogee, are their equals.
The upper lake, at its westerly end, contains twelve islands, which in the aggregate cover six acres—none of them, however, containing more than one acre, and some of them less than a quarter of one. McCarthy's is the one first reached. Arbutus is another, and the largest in the lake. It takes its name from the shrub, arbutus unendo. The leaves are a glossy green, and so arranged at the ends of the branches, that the waxen, flesh-like blossoms, as they hang in graceful racemes, or the later crimson fruit, seem embraced by a mantle of the richest verdure. All the islands abound in ivy, and the rocks and trees are often thoroughly bedecked with it. This lake is surely the finest of the three, and is so mainly from the fact of its having these islands and the great irregularity of the shore, embellished by the beautiful accompanying foliage. Being more immediately in the vicinity of the highlands, it has much of stern mountain effect and grandeur. From some points of view this little sheet of water appears to be entirely land-locked. Towards the lower end it becomes narrow, and is only a strip of water half a mile long. This is called Newfoundland Bay. On from this it is a yet narrower stream, varying from thirty to one hundred feet wide, and two miles long, which is the connecting part with the middle lake. To add a fascination, and intensify the interest of the tourist, every rock of respectable dimensions, and every island or cove, has its high-sounding name; for we pass Coleman's Eye, the Man of War, the Four Friends. We now arrive at the Eagle's Nest, a craggy formation 700 feet above the water, in the rugged clefts of which the eagle builds its eyrie. The young birds are taken from the nest between the middle of June and the first of July, and the rocks are so precipitous that the nests are only reached by means of ropes let down from above.
The echoes from this and the surrounding rocks are very fine, and we hear them grandly repeated from hilltop to hilltop—ever continued, and passed on with a clearly perceptible interval, till, weaker and weaker by their long, rough travel, they grow fainter, and at last melt away in some unknown cavern, or, as it were, infinitely distant glen, and are lost in the great realm of nothingness from whence they came.
Continuing on, we reach a fairy-like place, the Meeting of Waters, where our river, arriving at the middle lake, glides to the left around the end of Dinish Island, which reaches from, and is bounded by, this and the lower lake. Now we are at the Old Weir Bridge, very antiquated—consisting of two unequal arches, through which the water rushes with great earnestness and force. The boatmen do nothing but guide the boat, and it is a moment of intense interest to the novice, as we dash under one of the arches. Soon we are in the middle, or, as it is called, the Mucross, or Torc Lake.
This contains 680 acres, or forty more than a square mile. The principal islands are the Dinish and the Brickeen, and these are in fact the side and end walls, or the dividing barrier between it and the lower lake. There are three passages between them. This lake is oblong and narrow. In a line nearly straight we pass to the high, Gothic, single-arched bridge connecting it with the lower lake. Brickeen contains 19 acres, and is twenty or more feet up from the lake, and well wooded. Dinish is also well wooded. It contains 34 acres, and is a sort of watering-place. It has a small, rough, rustic stone wharf; also a cottage-hotel with pleasure-grounds; and by making previous arrangements dinner may be had.
Our provident hostess, having an eye to our comfort and another to her income, had sent by the boatmen a basket of luncheon, and so we dined on the lake itself, and not on the shore of it. Of the beauty of Torc Lake much may be said. It has a charm peculiarly its own. Shut in with a considerably uniform wall-work of islands, it is an immense pool of clear water, in which the overhanging shrubbery is finely reflected. Its air of repose and quiet beauty makes it of interest to persons of a retiring nature, and those to whom the vastness of mountain scenery does not so pleasantly appeal.
We now pass under the great Gothic arch of Brickeen Bridge, and are in Lough Leane, or the lower lake. It has an area of five thousand acres, being five miles long, and three wide, with a very irregular shore, comprising, high and low lands, coves and inlets, a few mountain recesses, and a great variety of pleasing scenery. Its islands are thirty in number, few of which, however, measure more than an acre in extent. The largest are Rabbit Island, of more than twelve acres, and Innisfallen, of twenty-one acres. Many of them have a fancied resemblance to particular things, and so are named Lamb, Elephant, Gun, Horse, Crow, Heron, Stag. The chief beauties of this great sheet of water are its generally placid surface, the mountains bordering it on the south and west, and its unlikeness to either of the others, in its low lands, and its estates stretching off to the north and east. It abounds in quiet nooks, bays, and inlets, breaking its margin; and the barren rocks on one side contrast finely with the verdure of the shore on the other.
Sir Walter Scott has given a magic charm to Loch Katrine by reciting its legends; but, had he been so disposed, he could have given a like halo to these lakes, for legends of O'Donoghue and of the McCarthys abound, and supply such romantic materials as few countries can boast. As a sample we quote but one:—
Once in seven years, on a fine morning, before the sun's rays have begun to disperse the mist from the bosom of the lake, O'Donoghue comes riding over it on an elegant snowwhite horse, with fairies hovering about him, and strewing his path with flowers. As he approaches his ancient residence, everything resolves itself into its original condition and magnificence; the castle itself, banquet halls, library, his prison, and his pigeon house, are as they were in the olden time. Any one who desires, and is courageous enough to follow him over the lake, may cross even the deepest parts dry-footed, and ride with him into the caves of the adjoining mountains, where his treasures are deposited and concealed; and the daring visitor will receive a liberal gift for his company and venture, but before the sun has arisen, and in the early twilight, O'Donoghue recrosses the water, and vanishes amid the ruins of the castle, to be seen no more till the next seven years have expired.
The part of the lake first entered is called Glena Bay, and as the opposite shore, some three miles away, is low, the distant surface of the lake seems to melt into the horizon, producing an effect not made by either of the other lakes. Here on the little bay's shore is the picturesque cottage of Lady Kenmare; and in the woods and highlands, which for a couple and more miles bound the western shore of the lake, are red deer, and the place was once a famous hunting-ground.
We pursue our course, not stopping at O'Sullivan's Cascade, a waterfall consisting of three sections, situated a short distance back in the forest; nor do we go over to Innisfallen Island, distant but two miles to our left and in full view, though it is remarkably interesting on account of historical associations.
Of all the islands of the lakes it is the most picturesque and beautiful. It contains glades and lawns, thickets of flowering shrubs and evergreens, with an abundance of arbutus and hollies of great size and beauty, and also oak and ash trees of magnificent foliage and growth. Innisfallen contains about twenty-one acres, and commands one of the most desirable and lovely views of the entire lake and surrounding mountain scenery. The most interesting object on it, however, is the grand ruin of the ancient abbey, founded in the year 600, by St. Finian.
In this celebrated place the strange and interesting "Annals of Innisfallen" were composed. They contain fragments of the Old Testament, and a compendious, though not very valuable, annual history down to the time of St. Patrick, and one more perfect from the fourth to the fourteenth century. The originals, written more than five hundred years ago, are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. A translation of this work has been repeatedly attempted, but has never been far enough advanced to issue from the press. The Annals are a special record of Munster, but are filled with a dry record of great crimes and their punishment, wars, lists of princes and clergy, and elaborate accounts of the disputes and violent