these suburbs. In that pleasant evening air, within sound of the vesper bells, enveloped in the general stillness of that village atmosphere, there came good and vivid impressions of the antiquity of the place. Without an effort came the remembrance that, through the past centuries, thousands and tens of thousands of sight-seers, poets, historians, and people of great and of small renown, had walked these streets, meditated, used the time as we were doing, and passed on—their feet never to press this historic soil again—
Like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.
The next morning we took a jaunting-car, and began our tour of the lakes. A most elegant day it was, like good old George Herbert's Sunday—the "bridal of the earth and sky." Admirable in all respects were the roads and their surroundings—a perpetual reminder of worse kept ones at home. We pass an elegant stone building, the Union Workhouse and County Lunatic Asylum, on the right, leaving the cathedral on our left, and ride on through that lovely scenery. It is not wild or romantic, in the common signification of those words.
On our right, off in the fields and on elevated ground, are the ruins of Aghadoe, overlooking an immense valley, where reposes—out of sight to us at our left, Lough Leane, the lower and largest of the three celebrated lakes.
Next, three miles out, are the ruins of Aghadoe castle and church. All that remains are the fragments of a tower thirty or forty feet in height. Of its history, or the date of its foundation, no records are extant. The church is a fine ruin, and shows the remains of a long low building, consisting of two chapels, joined at their rear ends. The easterly chapel is in the Gothic style, bearing date a. d. 1158, and is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Full seven hundred years are gone, more than a third of the Christian era, since that stone pile was placed where it is. The other chapel is older yet, of a rude, Romanesque architecture, and was built under the patronage of St. Finian. The two are separated by a solid wall, through which there was once a communication, closed up long before the vacating and destruction of the building. The roof and woodwork being gone, nothing but stone remains. The two chapels, extending to the east and west, are eighty feet long and twenty feet wide.
Continuing our ride a mile farther, we turn to the left, and pass the Aghadoe House—a fine and well-kept estate, the residence of the Dowager Lady Headley. Next, we turn sharp to the right, and are at the estate of James O'Connell, Esq., brother of the late distinguished agitator, Daniel O'Connell. Continuing, we pass the Killalee House, and the ruins of its church. Six and a half miles now from Killarney, we have on our left, the elegant estate of Beaufort House.
We cross the little River Laune, which is filled with surplus water from the small, or upper lake, and here appears to view Dunloe Castle, the seat of Daniel Mahoney, Esq. The building has a modern look, and was originally the residence of the powerful and noted O'Sullivan Mor. We must not fail to notice the Cave of Dunloe. It is situated in a field some distance off, is of great antiquity, and was discovered in 1838. It contains peculiar stones, which are presumed to belong to an ancient Irish library; and, strange to say, the books are the large stones composing the roof. Their angles contain the writings, which are simple, short, vertical lines, arranged, tally-like, above and below a horizontal one. Special numbers or combinations of these lines designate letters. It is the Ogham alphabet.
We are now near the cottage of the celebrated Kate Kearney, whom Moore has immortalized in his "Sweet Innisfallen,"—
"Kate Kearney,
Who lives on the banks of Killarney."
The house is solitary, and stands on the left of the roadside, with high hills about it. It is but one story high, and is some forty feet long, and twenty wide. It is made of stone, plastered and whitewashed, has a thatched roof, and is occupied by the reputed granddaughter of the famous Kate, and of course she bears the same name. On our arrival, she appeared at her door as usual—an old woman of sixty years, of small stature. She wore a short dress, heavy shoes, the inevitable kerchief, or miniature shawl, folded diamond-ways over her shoulders, and a frilled white muslin cap on her head. She held a mug in one hand, and a common wine bottle in the other, with glass tumbler to match. She poured out the goat's milk, and then naïvely, with an almost young-maidenly tone of voice, asked: "And will ye not have put into it a drop of the mountain dew?" We must, though total abstinence men, run a bit of risk now, to do all that curious tourists do, so we said Yes. A drop or two mingled with the milk, when the thought instantly came that at home the dew would have been so like whiskey that we couldn't convince ourselves it was not, and so we cried "Hold! Enough!" She held, and it was enough. A shilling was presented; but no, she had done business too long, and her distinguished grandmother before her, to be outgeneralled by Yankees, and so came a demand for more, which was refused. Her maiden-like demure condition changed, and we left, thinking discretion and valor were synonymous terms; and she, probably of the same opinion, retired to try her luck with the next comer that way.
And now we enter the Gap of Dunloe, one of the notable places of Ireland. It is a narrow, wild, and romantic mountain pass, between highlands known as Macgillicuddy's Reeks on the right, and Purple Mountain on the left. The length of the pass is about four miles, and the road is circuitous and hilly. At the side, and at times crossing it, is a narrow stream called the Loe, at as many places expanded into five small lakes, or pools. The mountain-sides are rocky and often precipitous, and the road is here and there little more than a cart-path, winding right and left romantically between these hills, from which echoes finely the sound of our voices, or the bugle blown or the musket fired by peasants for the tourists' amusement. The journey is one thrillingly interesting, and about the only one of the kind that can be made on the island.
One of the five lakes, each of which has a name, is called Black Lough; and it is in this—a basin some one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, with walls of stone, partially filled with a dark water—that St. Patrick is said to have banished the last snake. The guides have the story at their tongue's end, and glibly relate it in a schoolboy-like fashion, never tripping, nor leading one to so much as surmise that they have not told the story before.
The team takes us but a short distance into the gap, and we avail ourselves of animals called horses, who are ever on hand for the purpose. The guides owning them have followed us for a mile or more, in spite of our protestations, acting as though they knew we should hire their beasts, although we had with business-like earnestness told them that we thought we would walk. These animals were of a doubtful nature, that would confuse Darwin. They were either high-grade mules with short ears, or low-grade horses with long ones. We finally agreed with the owners, paying fifty cents each for the what-is-its, the guides engaging to take the animals back when we were done with them.
Emerging from the gap we come out at the Black Valley stretching away to our left, and hemmed in, amphitheatre-like, by the base of the hills. The first view of this sombre moor reminds one of the heath-pictures in "Macbeth." Kohl says of it: "Had there been at the bottom, among the rugged masses of black rock, some smoke and flame instead of water, we might have imagined we were looking into the infernal regions." We ride down a winding road in the great amphitheatre, and along to its extremity, and are at the end of our journey with the horses; and now we are to walk a half-mile through a footpath, over fields and through pleasant groves, to the once fine garden and present ruins of Lord Brandon's Cottage. Here, we are at the upper lake; and our boatmen, by arrangement of the hostess at Innisfallen House, were there awaiting our arrival at 1 p. m. They had, as usual, gone direct from Killarney to the lower lake, and had rowed over that and the two others to this point, having made, in reversed order, the tour over the lakes we are to take.
At 1.30 p. m., Thursday, April 25, we are in the row-boat with our two oarsmen, starting from the shore of the upper lake which is the smallest of the three—a sheet of water two and a half miles long, three fourths of a mile wide, and covering 430 acres, being about two thirds as large as the middle lake, and only a little more than a twelfth as large as the lower one. And here we must say, what of choice we would not say, that in most instances, where the imagination has free play, realities do not fulfil anticipations.
The fulsome and unqualified praises which have been bestowed on these really beautiful