'Tis sure that the lads will be goin' to CorkWhen their money is gone and they're wantin' to work;But 'tis just as sure that they'll turn back to KerryFor a purty colleen when they're wantin' to marry.
Kerry is a poor country and always will be, for it consists mostly of stony hills, and though it is renowned for its scenery, no one except the hotel keepers can live on that. Such little hill farms as have been wrested from the rocks produce but scantily; so when there is a "long family," as the Irish put it—and "long families"are the rule—one son will stay at home to look after the old people, and the others will fare forth into the world to search for a living. I hope it is true that they come back when they're searching for wives. Otherwise the lot of the Kerry girls, hard enough under any circumstances, would be harder still. Nowhere in Ireland are there brighter eyes or redder cheeks.
THE BAY AT GLENGARRIFFTHE BAY AT GLENGARRIFFTHE UPPER LAKE, KILLARNEY, FROM THE KENMARE ROAD
The rain was quite over by the time we were ready to start again, and the mist had disappeared under the rays of the sun, so that we had the benefit of the full beauty of the Kenmare River, which is really a wide bay, as we ran close along its western bank. Then the road doubled back from it, and presently the driver stopped at a spot where a narrow footpath struck down into the woods, and advised us to take it, saying that he would wait for us at its other end. In a moment we found ourselves clambering down the side of a wildly-beautiful ravine, with the roar of rushing water rising from below, and trees festooned with ferns and ivy meeting above our heads. And then, high above us, we saw the arch of a stone bridge; and quite suddenly we came out upon the stream, the Blackwater, foaming over the rocks. It was at its very best, from the heavy rain of the morning, and we stood there watching it, fascinated by its beauty, as long as we dared.
We went on again close beside the shore of the bay, and in half an hour came to Parknasilla, where there is another big hotel, set in the midst of beautiful grounds, and with superb views opening on every side. The climate here is sub-tropical, and the vegetationmounts to a climax of riotous profusion, with palms and calla lilies growing in the open. The bay, too, is very fine, with bluff, rock-strewn shores, and innumerable green islets speckling its sparkling waters, and rugged mountains closing in the distance.
Then again we were off, mounting steadily, steadily, winding under beetling crags and above grey precipices; up and up, with the world sinking away into the valley at our left, and the heathery, rock-strewn heights soaring upward at our right; and finally, at our feet, opened the wonderful panorama of the Brown Valley—brown bog, brown rock, brown heather, mounting to the distant slopes of Macgillicuddy's Reeks. We dropped down toward it, mile after mile; then up and up again, to the crest of the ridge beyond—and there, far below us, lay the lakes of Killarney, rimmed with green hills and dotted with green islands—the most sweetly beautiful in all the world.
The loveliest general view of the lakes of Killarney to be had from anywhere is as one drops down toward them along the Kenmare road. Their individual beauties may, of course, be seen to better advantage closer at hand; but from this height, the whole wonderful panorama stretches before one. Right across the valley opens the Gap of Dunloe, with the rugged Reeks on one side and the green clad Purple Mountain on the other; below is the narrow, island-dotted, hill-encircled upper lake; farther away is Muckross Lake, and far in the distance stretch the blue waters of Lough Leane, the largest of them all. My advice is to take a long look at it, for you will never see anything more lovely.
The road soon dropped among the trees, and our driver pointed out with evident pride the Queen's cottage on the shore of the upper lake, built a good many years ago in order that Victoria, on her tour of the lakes, might have a fitting place in which to lunch, and which has never been occupied since. Then the road ran close beside the border of the middle lake, plunged again into the woods for a mile or two; and at last the bus stopped before the inn where we intended to stay, and we climbed down regretfully.
The inn was a long, two-storied building, standing a little back from the road, and the porter who came running out to take our bags might have stepped straight out of Pickwick, he was so fat, so jolly, and so rubicund. I had some films I wanted developed at once, because I was afraid the damp weather would affect them, and I asked him where I could get it done.
"There's a man just this side of the village can do it, sir," he said. "You will see his sign as you go along the road."
"How far is it?" I asked.
"The village is two mile, sir."
"Then it's less than two miles?"
"It is, sir."
I turned to Betty.
"We've got plenty of time before dinner," I said. "Suppose we walk in and see the town."
And Betty, wotting little of what was before her, consented.
I put my films in my pocket, and we set off eagerly along the pleasant road, past a little village, past a church with a graveyard back of it and a Celtic crosshigh on the hillside above it, past a hotel or two, around one turn after another, with green-clad hills mounting steeply to our right and the blue lake lying low on our left. We met an occasional cyclist, or a donkey-cart being driven home from market, or a labourer trudging stolidly home from work, or two or three girls strolling along with arms interlaced, exchanging confidences. And the air was very sweet and the evening very cool and pleasant, and the sky full of glorious colour—
"We must certainly have come two miles," said Betty. "What do you suppose is the matter?"
"I don't know," I said, looking at my watch and noting that we had been half an hour on the road. "Perhaps we'll see the town around the next turn."
But we didn't. All we saw was about half a mile of empty road. We covered this and came to another turn, and there before us lay another long stretch of road. Determined not to give up, we pushed on, and came to a bridge over a rippling little stream, which we learned afterward was the Flesk, and we stopped and looked at it awhile and rested.
"We must be nearly there," I said encouragingly.
"What's bothering me," explained Betty, "isn't the distance we have to go to get there; it's the distance we have to go to get back."
There was another bend in the road just beyond the bridge, and we turned this, confident that the village would be there. But it wasn't. We saw nothing but the smooth highway, stretching away and away into the dim distance. I looked at my watch again.
"We've been walking nearly an hour," I said. "It looks as though we might miss dinner, after all."
And just then there came the trot of a horse and the jingle of harness along the road behind us, and a side-car drew up with a flourish.
"Would your honour be wantin' a car?" asked the jarvey, leaning toward us ingratiatingly.
"We were told there was a photographer's just this side of the village. Do you know where it is?"
"I do, your honour."
"How far is it?"
"'Tis just over there beyont. If you will step up on the car, I'll have ye there in a minute. I'm goin' right past it."
Of course we got up. And, as the jarvey had said, the photographer's shop was just around the next bend. But before I got down, I made a bargain with him to drive us back to our hotel, and, after I had left my films, we set merrily off through the gathering dusk.
"There's one thing I don't understand," I said, at last. "The porter at the hotel said it was only two miles to the village. Yet we walked for an hour without getting there."
"He meant Irish miles, your honour," explained the jarvey, laughing. "There is an old saying that 'an Irish mile is a mile and a bit, and the bit is as long as the mile.' You see, here in ould Ireland we always stretch everything."
I have found since that the Irish mile is about a mile and a quarter; but this is no real measure of its elasticity. More than once thereafter we saw one mile stretch out to three; and we soon came to realise that the Irish mind is extremely vague and inexact when it comes to distances and directions.
We got back to the hotel to have our first view of what proved to be a nightly ceremony. On a stand in the entrance hall was a huge platter, and on the platter lay a huge salmon, and a card leaning against it announced that it weighed fourteen pounds and had been caught that day by Captain Gregory, and there were flowers all about it, so it's a proud fish it should have been. There were five or six other salmon on a lower table, each with a card giving its weight—anywhere from five pounds to eleven—and the whole collection represented the day's catch of the guests of the hotel.
For the hotel, being handy to the lakes, and clean and comfortable and homelike, is a favourite resort of the fishermen who come to Killarney during the salmon season. Every evening while we were there, as the fishermen came in, tired and wet, with their boatmen tramping behind them carrying the fish—if there were any—they were met at the door by the rotund porter, his face beaming like a full moon—a red harvest moon!—and the fish would be solemnly weighed, and the biggest would be decorated with flowers and awarded the place of honour, and the others would be grouped around it, and after dinner, the fishermen would stand and look at them, their hands deep in their pockets; and later on there would be a great bustle as the fish were wrapped in straw and tied up, ready to be sent by parcel-post to admiring friends back home!
It was a cosmopolitan crowd which gathered that evening after dinner about the big fireplace in the smoking-room, where a most welcome and comforting woodfire blazed and crackled. The weather had turned very cold, and Betty and I were dressed as warmly as we had been at any time during the winter, though it was the fifth of June, and the papers were running long columns about the fearful heat wave which had America in its grip. There was a sturdy, red-faced old Scotchman in carpet slippers, and a sallow, heavy-lidded ancient whom the others addressed as "colonel," and just such a close-clipped, stiff-backed sporting squire as is Canon Hannay's Major Kent, of near Ballymoy; and there were two or three other Englishmen with no outstanding characteristic except their insularity; and the talk was of flies and rods and casts, and everybody was indignant at the suffragette who had rushed out on the track and tried to stop the Derby; and there was a steady emptying of tall glasses and a steadily-deepening cloud of tobacco smoke, and everybody was very comfortable and cosy. And presently the old Scotchman took pity on me as a mere American who knew nothing about the high mysteries of sport.
"It must be a great pleasure for you to sit before an open fire like this," he said.
"It is," I agreed. "There's nothing more pleasant than a wood fire."
"Ye may well say so. But of course in America you have nothing like it."
"Nothing like it?" I repeated, looking at him.
"Why no," he said. "You never see an open fire in America. All you have is steam pipes running all around the room."
I looked at him again to see if he was in earnest; and then I tried gently to disabuse his mind of that idea.But it was no use. Indeed, he got rather huffy when I said I had never seen a room with steam pipes running all around it.
The savage insularity of the average Englishman is matter for never-ending amusement, once one has grown accustomed to his contempt. He believes that all American men are money-grubbers, and all American women social climbers, who chew gum and talk loudly, while their daughters are forward minxes who call their fathers "popper," and that men, women, and children are alike wholly lacking in culture and good-taste. The peculiar thing about it is that he never for an instant doubts his own good taste in telling one all this frankly to one's face.
This is no fancy sketch. My own opinion is that the average Englishman has no genuine feeling of friendship for America, and his ignorance of things American is abysmal. One day, on the boat coming home, a well-educated Englishman whom I had got to know, asked me the name of a man with whom I had been talking.
"That is Senator So-and-so," I answered.
"What is a senator?" he inquired.
I remember that one day Betty and I and two other Americans happened to be driving through the Tyrol in a coach with two Englishmen, and they began to discuss American railway accidents—a favourite topic with Englishmen when Americans are present; and one of them remarked that it was no wonder there were so many accidents in America, since when Americans built a railroad all they did was to lay the ties along on top of the ground and spike the rails to them. Iasked him if he had ever been to America, and he said no, and I advised him to run over and pay us a visit some time. This huffed him.
"Ah!" he said. "But what you Americans would give for a king!"
"Give for a king?"
"Yes; you would give anything for a king. Then you could have a court and an aristocracy, and some real society. You're sick of your limping, halting, make-believe government, and you know it!"
We all four stared at him in astonishment, wondering if he had gone suddenly mad. Then Betty got her breath.
"No," she said; "you're really wrong about that. You see we settled the king question back in 1776."
The rest was silence.
But really Englishmen aren't to blame for their distorted ideas of America, for they get those ideas from the English newspapers, and the only kind of American news most English newspapers publish is freak news. During that week, for instance, almost the only American news in any of the papers was about the terrific heat-wave, about Harry Thaw's escape from Matteawan, and about some millionaire who had taken bichloride of mercury by mistake, and lived for ten days or so afterwards, occupying the time very cheerfully in closing up his affairs. After his death, one of the great London dailies published a column editorial about the affair, reasoning in the most solemn manner that his survival for so long a time could have been due only to the remarkable tonic properties of the American climate.
With the Irish it is entirely different. In the first place, America is to them the haven to which a million Irishmen have fled from English persecution; and in the next place, their knowledge of the country comes not from newspapers but from letters written by relatives and friends. The letters are somewhat rosier, I fear, than the facts warrant, but they establish a kindly feeling which makes every Irishman ready to welcome the passing American as a friend and brother. The only trouble is that he is also apt to regard him as necessarily a millionaire.
It is undoubtedly true that a large portion of the lower-class Irish consider it no disgrace to beg from an American. Not that they are habitual beggars, but when an American comes their way, they seem to consider it a waste of opportunity if they do not apply for a small donation. In tourist centres, such as Dublin and Killarney, they are very persistent, especially the children, and will follow along for minutes on end telling the tale of their poverty and distress in queer bated voices, as though they lacked the strength to speak aloud. But Betty accidentally discovered a cure for this nuisance, quite as effective as John Minogue's, and I take pleasure in passing it on.
Like most other people who have lived together for a long time, we have developed a lot of symbols and pass-words, without meaning to any one but ourselves; and it has become a rather foolish habit of mine when we are together and I see something I especially admire, to express my admiration by uttering the single word "Hickenlooper." And Betty, if she agrees, says "Oppenheimer," and we understand each other and passon. One day in Cork, a group of children were unusually annoying, and followed along and followed along, until Betty, losing patience, turned upon them sharply, pointed her finger at them, and said "Oppenheimer!" I shall never forget the startled look in their eyes, as they stopped dead in their tracks, stared at her for an instant, and then fled helter-skelter. We decided afterwards that they thought she was putting a curse on them. She tried it more than once thereafter, and it never failed to work; so, if you are annoyed beyond endurance by juvenile beggars in Ireland, turn upon them sharply, point your finger at them, and say "Oppenheimer!"
And since I am giving advice, I will give one bit more before I close this chapter.
Among the purchases which Betty had made in New York, just before we sailed, was a small electric torch. I had derided it as unnecessary, but she had insisted on bringing it along, and had put it in our travelling-bag when we were sorting over our luggage in Dublin. The first night at Thurles, in a dreary little room, with only the flickering candle for a light, I acknowledged her wisdom, for the bright glow of the torch was very welcome. Again at Glengarriff candles were the only illumination, and that night at Killarney, when I got to our room, I found her in animated conversation with the chambermaid by the light of a single tallow dip. They were talking about America, I think, and the maid's eyes were shining with excitement and her cheeks were flushed and the beautiful soft brogue was rolling off her tongue, when a sudden gust fromthe open window blew the candle out. Betty picked up the torch from the dresser and pressed the button.
"Glory be to God! What's that?" cried the girl, as the glare flashed into her astonished eyes.
"It's only a torch," said Betty. "It won't hurt you." And then, when I had lighted the candle again, she showed the girl how it worked.
"Glory be to God!" she cried again. "The wonder of it! You would niver be gettin' that in Ireland!"
"No; I got it in New York."
"Ah, 'tis a wonderful place," said the girl, reverentially. "No place but America would be havin' such things as that!"
Now this is no doubt a libel upon Ireland, for I suppose one can get electric torches there. At any rate, my advice is to get one somewhere—a good one—and take it along in your handbag. This advice is good for the continent as well as for Ireland, but it is especially good for the latter, and the reason is this:
In the old days, when English prodigals wasted their substance on castellated palaces, the Irish squire, being a wiser man, spent his money on good wine and good horses—or, when he had no money, ran light-heartedly into debt for them. As to his family mansion, he contented himself with adding a wing from time to time, as it might be needed, either because of the increasing number of his children, or the widening circle of his friends. The result was a singular house, often only one story high, never more than two, flung wide over a great deal of ground, and of a most irregular plan. Such a house had many advantages, for, as anotherwriter has pointed out, "at one end of it the ladies could sleep undisturbed, no matter how joyous the men were at the other; there were no stairs to fall down; and the long narrow corridors were pleasant to those who found it hard to direct their devious steps."
But the time came when these hospitable Irishmen found themselves overwhelmed by debt, their houses were taken from them, and many of them, since they were too large for any private family, were converted into inns. The traveller in rural Ireland will encounter more than one of them, and will find those long, shadowy, zig-zag corridors eerie places after night, unless he has a torch to light his steps. The doors are not always fitted with locks, and if the window is kept open, an intruder has only to step over the sill. We never had any intruder; but had we had, I am sure one flash from the torch would have sent him flying.
THE "GRAND TOUR"
Thereare many excursions which can be made over and around the Killarney lakes, but the most important one—the "grand tour," so to speak—starts at the town, proceeds by car to Kate Kearney's cottage, then by pony through the Gap of Dunloe, then by boat the full length of the lakes to Ross Castle, and back to town again by car. This round takes a day to accomplish, and gives one a very fair idea of Killarney. It is about all most of the people who come to Killarney ever see of it. In fact, some of them don't see that much—as will presently appear.
Now Killarney is to Ireland what the Trossachs are to Scotland and Niagara Falls to America—in other words, its most famous show-place; and so it has passed more or less under the control of that ubiquitous exploiter of show-places, Thomas Cook. Cook arranges all the excursions, Cook controls most of the vehicles, Cook's boats are the biggest and safest, and so, if you wish to see Killarney "in the least fatiguing manner," you must resign yourself to Cook. Let me say here that I admire Cook; there is no place where a traveller is served more courteously, more fairly, or more intelligently than in a Cook office. No one need be ashamed to make intelligent use of Cook. The reason of his disrepute is that he has come to be used so largely by self-complacent people whose idea of seeing Europeis to gallop from place to place in charge of a conductor. But that isn't Cook's fault.
Killarney is the one place in Ireland which every tourist wants to see, not because it is characteristically Irish, but because it has been very carefully exploited. In my own opinion, a trip to Holy Cross and Cashel, or to Mellifont and Monasterboice and the tombs of the kings, or to the congested districts of Connaught, is far better worth while. But the great bulk of tourist traffic follows the beaten path, and in Ireland the beaten path leads straight to Killarney.
As we sat at breakfast next morning, we witnessed the ceremonial rites involved in getting the fishermen started off for the day's sport. The rotund porter acted as major-domo, and puffed and panted and hurried hither and yon, his brow creased with the anxieties of his high office.
It is a point of honour with all true fishermen to wear only the most faded, rain-stained, disreputable of garments, and it was a weird-looking company which gathered in front of the hotel that morning, with their hats, decorated with many-coloured flies, flapping around their brick-red faces. There was one woman in the lot who was going out with her father—a short, square spinster, evidently hard as nails, with a face as red as the reddest, and boots as heavy as the heaviest. The wonder was that she didn't smoke a pipe like the others. They overhauled their tackle with great care—shook out the lines, tested rods and reels, examined the flies, and finally trudged away, the boatman following, laden with rain-proofs and lunch-basketand gaff and landing-net, and with a broad grin on his face at the prospect of sharing his employer's tobacco and lunch, and of earning a few shillings in so pleasant a manner.
When we had finished breakfast, we went out to have a look at the weather, and found the sun shining brightly, with every prospect of a pleasant day. The porter assured us that there was no chance of rain; but we had already had some experience of the fickleness of the Irish climate, so we went back and prepared for the worst, and clambered presently to the seat of the car Cook sent for us.
On the way in to the village, we stopped at another hotel to pick up three American women who had been touring the continent and England, and who, by a long jump, had managed to squeeze in one day for Killarney before hastening on to Queenstown to catch their boat. They had arrived late the night before, and would leave for Cork as soon as the tour of the lakes had been completed, and they were jubilant because the day was so fine. They had feared it might rain, and that their long journey would be for nothing. The only protection against rain they had with them was two small umbrellas, and I could see that they were somewhat amused at our rain-coats and leggings.
There was a long open coach, with seats for about twenty people, waiting in front of Cook's office in the village, and presently, as cars drove in from the various hotels, this was filled to overflowing, and at last we rumbled away. We were fortunate in having been assigned to the front seat with the driver, a handsome, good-humoured fellow, not averse to talking;and behind us we could hear the merry chatter of the happy and contented crowd. We passed the workhouse, which, as usual, is the biggest building in the place, and then the lunatic asylum, which is almost as big, and then we saw the ruins of Aghadoe high on the hillside—and then I felt a drop of rain on my cheek. There was another drop, and then another, and then a gentle patter, and then a rushing and remorseless downpour.
We held the rubber lap-robe up under our chins and the water ran down it in streams. The happy chatter had turned to exclamations of consternation and dismay, and we did not need to look around to realise the havoc which the rain was working. The driver chirruped to his horses and endeavoured to divert his passengers with a few stanzas of a classic Irish drinking song, rendered in a resounding baritone:
Let the farmer praise his grounds,Let the huntsman praise his hounds,The shepherd his dew-scented lawn;But I, more blest than they,Spend each happy night and dayWith my charming little cruiskeen lawn, lawn, lawn,With my charming little cruiskeen lawn.
"What does cruiskeen lawn mean?" asked a man's voice behind us.
"Oh, it is just a term of endearment," said a woman's voice in answer. "Don't you remember the song about Willy Reilly and his dear cruiskeen lawn?"
"Oh, yes," said the man.
I caught a twinkle in our driver's eye, but he said nothing. After all, Willy Reilly, being a true Irishman,no doubt loved his cruiskeen lawn, or little full jug, almost as well as his colleen bawn, or fair-haired lassie.
So we rolled merrily on, and presently turned into a hilly lane, where a crowd of ragamuffins mounted on bony steeds awaited us. These were the pony-boys, and a wild-looking lot they were as they fell in about us and proceeded to act as a sort of cavalry escort. We took a bridge and a steep grade beyond at a gallop, and drew up in front of a white-washed, slate-roofed little house, which our driver announced was Kate Kearney's cottage, and his bedraggled passengers made a break for its welcome shelter. It was Lady Morgan who celebrated Kate's charms in the ingenuous verses beginning,
Oh, did you not hear of Kate Kearney?She lives on the banks of Killarney,From the glance of her eye shun danger and fly,For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney,
and she is supposed to have lived somewhere in this neighbourhood, though it is a long way from the "banks of Killarney." At any rate, this spick-and-span cottage, very unlike Kate's, has been given her name, and I dare say that any of the girls who tend bar inside would answer to it, just to keep up the local colour.
The room into which the door opens has a bar at one end and an open fire at the other, and while the women of the party crowded about the fire, the men paused before the bar for a taste of potheen. There are many other opportunities to taste it before one gets through the gap, but if it is to be done at all, it wouldbetter be done here, for here one gets a clean glass to drink it out of. The whiskey is supposed to be surreptitious, but of course it has paid the tax like any other; an inch of it is poured into the bottom of the glass, and then the glass is filled with milk, and one drinks it and smacks one's lips and looks knowing. I drank a glass of it in the interests of this narrative, and I am free to say I have drunk many things I liked better.
At the end of half an hour, everybody had managed to get fairly dry, and a prolonged discussion arose whether to go on through the gap or turn back to the town. The rain was still falling steadily, and there was no sign of break in the heavy clouds, though our conductor contended that they were clearing away to the westward. The motley crew of pony-boys, with their shaggy "coppaleens," were all most insistent that the shower would soon be over, and that it would be a great mistake to go back. Betty and I had already made up our minds: we were going to see the thing through whatever happened; but the rest of the crowd vacillated back and forth in cruel indecision, especially the three women who must see Killarney to-day or never. We advised them to risk it; but in the end, only one other member of the party, a little German Jew, decided to do so, and all the rest clambered back into the bus and were driven off toward the town. The Cook's conductor stayed with us to act as pilot.
I wish you could have heard the chorus of commendation from those Irish throats as Betty mounted her pony. Sure she was the brave lady, she was the wise lady, the torrents and cataracts would be that fine; let the featherbed trash drive off back to the town, surethey were not worth a thought; the shower would soon pass by, and it would be a fine day, and anyway the Irish rain was a soft sweet rain that never did any harm, and the gap was the grandest sight in the whole world—so their tongues ran on.
I gave my camera into the keeping of the pony-boy who was going along with us, and scrambled into the saddle. I have had mighty little equestrian experience since my hobby-horse days, and I cannot pretend that I enjoyed that ride, for the road was rough and up-and-down and the pony anything but a smooth stepper. If I had it to do again, I think I should walk. The distance is only about five miles, and a person not thoroughly at home in the saddle has far more leisure to survey the beauties of the gap when he is using his own legs than when he is bumping along on a "coppaleen."
The accompaniments of the ride are more diverting than the ride itself. We had gone scarcely a dozen yards, when we found a photographer with his camera set up in the middle of the road, who took our pictures on the off chance that we'd buy one. Then from the shelter of a rock arose a battered human, with a still more battered cornet, which looked as though it had been used as a shillelagh in moments of absent-mindedness, and he offered to awake the echo for a penny. I produced the penny, but the blast he blew upon the horn was so faint and wavering that Echo slept on undisturbed. Then we came to an individual playing with great violence upon a wheezy accordion. The pony-boys said that he had been a great actor, but that rheumatism had overtaken him, so that he could strut the boards no longer, and he had finally been reducedto playing an accordion in the Gap of Dunloe, and they besought charity for him, as the most deserving case in the gap. And then we came to two men with a small cannon, which they offered to discharge for sixpence. And then began a long procession of barefooted old women, pretending to offer homeknit woollen socks and home-distilled potheen for sale, but really begging—begging most insistently, running along beside the ponies with their poor red feet slopping in the mud or slipping over the stones; voluble with their blessings if they got a small coin, and plainly thinking themselves insulted if they didn't.
Meanwhile, we had mounted into the gap along a rough and winding bridle-path, and a desolately-impressive place we found it. A little river, the Loe, runs at the bottom, and close on either side high, frowning, rock-strewn precipices tower steeply upwards. There is no sign of vegetation—except a patch of heather maintaining a perilous foothold here and there on the bare and desolate hills,—the Tomies on one side and McGillicuddy's Reeks on the other. And then, at what seemed the most desolate spot, we came to a substantial, two-storied house, a station of the Royal Irish Constabulary. What the police could find to do in such a desert was difficult to imagine; but we stopped a few minutes to talk with them, and they evidently welcomed the diversion.
Legend has it that the Gap of Dunloe was cleft by Finn MacCool with a single blow of his great sword, and that it was here, in the Black Lough into which the River Loe presently widens, that St. Patrick imprisoned the last snake in Ireland, by persuading it toenter a box on the promise that he would release it to-morrow. When the morrow came, the too-trusting serpent reminded the Saint of his promise, and asked him to open the lid, but Patrick replied that it was not yet to-morrow, but only to-day, and so the snake is still there in the box on the bottom of the lake, waiting for to-morrow to come. It makes such a fearful bubbling sometimes that it scares all the fish away, so that, while there are fish in plenty in the other lakes, there is none in this. There is a bridge at one end of the lake, and if one makes a wish as one crosses it, the wish will come true.
The road mounts steadily, curving from side to side of the valley, and one should stop from time to time and look back, or the full beauty of the place will be lost. We found the wind rushing along the heights, as we worked our way upward, and the rain fairly poured at times, so that the cataracts performed splendidly. At least I can vouch for two of them—one down Betty's nose and the other down mine! But presently, the clouds blew away, and the rain stopped just before we came out on the heights above the Black Valley.
This is undoubtedly the most beautiful point of the ride. To the right a savage glen runs back into the very heart of the Reeks, ending in a pocket shut in by sheer and rugged precipices. Far below lies the valley, with a silver ribbon of a river winding through it, and to the left shine the blue waters of the upper lake.
I dismounted at this point, turned my pony over to the boy, and went down the winding road on foot, forI didn't want anything to distract my eyes from this wonderful view. And presently we were down among the trees, before a little lodge called for some unknown reason "Lord Brandon's Cottage," in which sat a man to whom we had to pay a shilling each before we could pass to the landing-place at the head of the lake, where the boats and lunch were waiting. Killarney is about the only spot in Ireland which is exploited in this manner, but here you will find fees exacted at every turn—a petty annoyance which, added to the persistent begging and insistent demands for tips, does much to interfere with the pleasure of the Killarney trip.
At the landing we found two boats which had rowed up from Ross Castle during the morning—a small one with two oarsmen and a larger one with four. The conductor marshalled us into the big one, took his seat at the stern, got out our lunches, which had been sent up from the hotel, tucked us in with heavy waterproofs, drew the tiller-lines across his lap and gave the signal to start.
The upper lake is much the most beautiful of the three, with its many islands, and the high hills hemming it in. Near its lower end is Arbutus Island, and it is worth pausing a moment beside it to look at the arbutus, that handsomest of shrubs, with ruddy stem and glossy leaf, which is indigenous all about Killarney, but reaches its height of glory on this little island. It is impossible to tell where the outlet of the lake is, until you are right upon it, but it suddenly opens out between two high rocks, and the boat enters the Long Range—the winding river some three miles in length which connects the upper and middle lakes.
The rock on the left is called Colman's Leap, and the legend is that, once upon a time, this Colman, who was lord of the upper lake, was chased down the mountain by some supporters of The O'Donaghue, and took a flying leap across the river, in proof of which you may still see the print of his feet in the rock where he landed on the other side. Our guide offered to show us the foot-prints, if we required any proof of the story, but we assured him of our unquestioning belief.
The Reach itself is quite as beautiful as any of the lakes, for its banks are covered with the most varied and luxuriant vegetation; and once, as we drifted quietly along, we saw a red deer browsing among the bracken. And then we drifted past the foot of a great precipice, and the channel narrowed, the current quickened, and the boatmen prepared to run the rapids into the middle lake.
One of the boatmen was a wild-eyed old fellow, very nervous and fidgety, who had considerable difficulty in wielding an oar against the husky fellow opposite him, and more than once the steersman had admonished him to put more ginger into it. Now, as we drew near the rapids, his agitation increased, his eyes grew wilder than ever, and as the current caught us and we shot under the ancient arch of masonry called the Old Weir Bridge, he managed to strike his oar on a rock with a force that nearly broke it. The nose of the boat swerved alarmingly for an instant, but the steersman brought her round with a quick jerk, and in a minute more we were in the quiet waters of the middle lake. The atmosphere was far from quiet, however, as thesteersman relieved his mind. Let it be added that the rapids are not very terrible, as will be seen from the picture opposite this page, and even if the boat struck a rock and was ripped in two, one could get ashore without much difficulty.
OLD WEIR BRIDGE, KILLARNEYOLD WEIR BRIDGE, KILLARNEYTHE MEETING OF THE WATERSROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY
Just beyond, at the "meeting of the waters," there is a whirlpool called O'Sullivan's Punchbowl, and every rock and cave along the shore has its tradition, many of them manufactured, I suspect, for the consumption of the summer visitor. Most of the traditions are of The O'Donaghue, Chieftain of the Glens. A long cave is O'Donaghue's Wine-cellar; a depression at its mouth is O'Donaghue's Chair; and a tall knoll beside it is O'Donaghue's Butler, otherwise Jockybwee.
The boat leaves the middle lake under another massive, high-hipped arch of masonry—Drohid-na-Brickeen, "The Bridge of the Little Trout," or Brickeen Bridge, as it is called now—and emerges into Glena Bay, another place of beauty; but, as we were gazing at its loveliness, the boat suddenly pitched sideways, then tried to stand on end, and we started round to find ourselves in the midst of an ugly expanse of white-capped water. We had never thought of rough water on Killarney; yet here it was, and mighty rough at that. The lower lake is five miles long and half as wide, and when the wind gets a good sweep at it, it can kick up a sea that is not to be despised.
"'Tis just O'Donaghue's white horses out for a frolic," said the steersman encouragingly, and took a new grip of his lines. The oarsmen bent to their work, and we headed out into the lake, for it was necessary to cross to Ross Island.
We said nothing, but held tight, and grinned palely at each other when the boat made a peculiarly ferocious pitch; the spray flew in sheets, the wind dashed the spindrift viciously in our faces, and we would have been very wet indeed but for the waterproofs. But after the first few minutes, we began to enjoy it, for it was evident that the boat was a staunch one, and even if it went over, it wouldn't sink. I don't suppose there was really any danger of its going over, though it hung at an alarming angle on the side of a huge wave, once or twice; and at the end of half an hour, we swept under the lee of Ross Island, and our sweating boatmen paused to take breath. The excitable one was trembling so he could scarcely get his pipe between his teeth.
That night at the hotel, Betty was talking to two Englishwomen who had hired a boatman to row them out to Inisfallen Island. The lake hadn't been especially rough when they went out, and it wasn't until they got out of the lee of the island on the return trip that they realised its fury. Their boatman, at the end of a few moments, found himself unable either to get ahead or to go back; the most he could do was to keep the boat's head to the waves, and for nearly an hour they tossed there, shipping great seas, bailing desperately, too frightened to be sea-sick, and finally giving themselves up for lost, when the wind shifted and their boatman managed to struggle past the point of Ross Island. They expressed surprise that their hair wasn't white, and said that they would consider all the remainder of their lives sheer gain, because they felt that, except for a miracle, they would have endedon June 5, 1913. No doubt they exaggerated their danger, but just the same I would advise any one who is nervous on the water to be sure that the lower lake is fairly smooth before attempting to cross it. We certainly drew a breath of relief when we stepped ashore in the shadow of the ivy-clad ruins of Ross Castle.
The castle itself is not of especial interest, for all that is left of it is the ruin of the old keep, with some crumbling outworks, not nearly so imposing as Blarney. About the only reason to visit it is to get the view from the top, which is very fine. But it has some stirring associations, for it was the stronghold of the great O'Donaghue, whose legend dominates the whole district. The story goes that, every May morning just before sunrise, the old warrior, armed cap-à-pie, emerges from the lake, mounts his white horse, and rides like the wind across the waters, attended by fairies who strew his path with flowers.
It was here the Royalist forces made their last stand against Cromwell, and they thought they were safe, because the castle was a strong one, and was built on an island, which made it unusually difficult to attack; and furthermore there was an old legend which said it would never be taken until a fleet swam upon the lake. Ludlow brought an army of four thousand men over the mountains, and started a siege, but made little progress; and then, one morning, as the garrison looked out over the battlements, they saw a fleet of boats bearing down upon them across the lake, and they rubbed their eyes and looked again, only to see the boats nearer, and now they could discern the pieces of ordnancemounted in the bows and the soldiers who crowded them, and they were so awed by the fulfilment of the prophecy that they surrendered without more ado. That was the end of Ross Castle, but nobody knows certainly to this day how Ludlow got the boats over the hills from Castlemaine.
A pretty drive along the margin of the middle lake brought us back to the hotel, where we found all the fishermen assembled, for the water had been too rough for fishing. We hurried out of our wet things, and dinner certainly tasted good; and when we joined the others about the fire, that evening, we found that we had qualified for admission to their charmed circle by going through the gap and crossing the lake on such a day. We were no longer tenderfeet.