Did not intend to linger here any time, did
not seem to care much for the lakes now when I had got to see them. It
was a damp evening, the mountains, that loom up on every hand, were
wrapped in their gray cloaks, the lake whipped up by the squally winds
had risen in swells and everything looked dismal. I shall see some one
convenient sight and look round me and leave in the morning, I said.
The only available sight to be seen that night was Torc Cascade - well, I
will be content with that. I must take a car; bargained for that, and
drove through the walled-up country. Every place here is walled up,
enclosed, fenced in. I noticed some cottages that were pictures of
rustic beauty, others that were dirty hovels. The pretty cottages were
occupied by laborers on the estates that border on the lake. Passed a
handsome, little Episcopalian church in a sheltered place; near it were
two monumental crosses of the ancient Irish pattern, erected by the
tenants to the memory of Mr. Herbert, who was their landlord and who is
spoken of by the people as one who deserved that they should devote some
of their scant earnings to raise a cross to his memory.
In due time we arrived at a little door in the wall, where a man stood
in Mr. Herbert's interest, who gave a small ticket for sixpence,
unlocked the little arched door and admitted the stranger into this
temple of nature and art. A board hung on a tree was the first object,
warning visitors not to pluck ferns or flowers, the man at the gate
having notice to deprive marauding visitors of anything so gathered.
There is a winding gravel walk leading up the height almost alongside of
the brawling stream that leaps from rock to rock. I did not see any
flowers at all, but the common heather bell in two varieties and the
large coarse fern so common in our Canadian woods. There are many
cascades unnamed and unnoticed in our Canadian forests as handsome as
Torc Cascade. When you get up a good way you come to a black fence that
bars the way. You are above the tall firs, and the solemn Torc Mountain
rises far above you. I would have been lost in admiration had I never
seen the upper Ottawa or the River aux Lievres. Feeling no inclination
to commit petty larceny on the ferns, I descended slowly and returned.
The ruined abbey of Muckross is another of the sights of Killarney.
Every visitor pays a shilling to Mr. Herbert for permission to enter
here. I did not go to see it, but some of the party at the hotel did.
They described the cloisters as being in a good state of preservation -
cloisters are a kind of arched piazza running round a court yard, in
this case having in its centre a magnificent yew tree. These ruins are
taken great care of, therefore parts of the abbey are in a pretty good
state of preservation. They tell of a certain man named John Drake, who
took possession of the abbey kitchen about one hundred years ago, lived
there as a hermit for about eleven years in the odor of sanctity.
There was quite a party going through the gap of Dunloe, which reduced
the price of the trip to very little, comparatively speaking, and I was
persuaded to join it. Every available spot about here has a lordly
tower, a lady's bower, an old ruin or a new castle. The Workhouse is
fine enough and extensive enough for a castle, and the Lunatic Asylum
might be a palace for a crowned head. There are the ruins of Aghadon
Castle on one ridge and the shrunk remains of a round tower. A brother
of the great O'Connell lives here in a white house bearing the same name
as the hotel, Lakeview House. We look with some interest at Dunloe
Castle. once the residence of O'Sullivan Mor, and listen to the car-man
who tells us of the glories of the three great families that owned
Kerry, O'Sullivan Mor, O'Sullivan Bear and great O'Donoghoe.
Of course we hear legend after legend of the threadbare tales of the
Lakes. We heard much of the cave of Dunloe which has many records, in
the Ogham character, of Ireland in the days of the Druids. All this time
we were driving along a road with bare mountains, and tree-covered
mountains rising on every hand. It reminded me in some places of the
long glen in Leitrim, in others of Canadian scenes among the mountains.
We began to be beset by mounted men on scrubby ponies. They gathered
round us, riding along as our escort, behind and before and alongside
urging on us the necessity of a pony to cross the road through the gap.
Their pertinacity was something wonderful.
The carman stopped at a miserable cabin said to have been the residence
of the Kate Kearney of Lady Morgan's song. That heroine's modern
representative expects everyone to take a dose of goat's milk in poteen
from her, and leave some gratuity in return. The whole population turned
out to beg under some pretext or another. One very handsome girl,
bareheaded and barefooted, and got up light and airy as to costume,
begged unblushingly without any excuse. She gathered up her light
drapery with one hand, and kept up with the horse, skelping along
through mud and mire as if she liked it. I noticed that she was set on
by her parents who were the occupiers of a little farm.
Suddenly our car stopped at a house where all sorts of lake curiosities
were exposed for sale.
