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EXCURSION TO CARRÂN Tual.

on the highest Scotch, English, and Welsh ground, I had long been anxious to complete my catalogue of altitudes, by accomplishing this ascent; but had more than once been obliged to put it off, as it is useless to make the attempt except in the finest and clearest weather.

At length, on Monday, August 26th, the morning was so temptingly beautiful, that I determined to avail myself of it, although unfortunately unable to persuade any companion to join me. I took a car as far as Mr. Blennerhasset's Lodge, nine miles from Killarney; and there sent it back, intending to descend by the other side of the Reeks to the head of the Upper Lake, where Doherty's boat was to meet me. Near the Gap of Dunloe, I took up one Cornelius Moriarty, who had been recommended to me as by far the best guide for Carrân Tual: he was a stout, honest, well-meaning fellow, very civil, and very obliging, and seemed to possess a tolerable

EXCURSION TO CARRÂN TUAL.

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knowledge of the mountain and surrounding country.

After leaving the car, we entered a long and wide valley, with the ridge of the Reeks to our left, and Carrân Tual at its further extremity before us. Up this glen we trudged for an hour and a half, the vale gradually becoming narrower and wilder. At its upper termination I was much astonished to find an inhabited cabin, surrounded by a patch of potatoes and oats, that can but seldom ripen properly in this bleak solitude, the very verge of human existence. We soon after came upon two lakes; at which point we left the usual and easier path, and turned to the right, through what is called "the Hag's Glen." It is much the longest, and most difficult, but is as decidedly the grandest passage.

The ascent now became really severe, and the scenery peculiarly savage and magnificent. We crept along the brow of some very lofty precipices, which perpendicularly overhang one

of the Lakes, and soon after came in full view of a most singular pyramid of rock, called the Hag's Tooth. Passing close under it, we next made our laborious way, first into one very confined valley of rocks, and then into a second, of rapidly increasing wildness. The character of this scenery was something in the style of the Glen of the Horse, but infinitely superior to it in grandeur and sublimity: indeed, a sterner or more desolate scene can scarcely be imagined by one who has not seen Loch Corriskin, in the Isle of Skye.

High above us, to our left, towered Carrân Tual's mountain, throne, upreared on huge ledges of precipitous rock, the undisturbed and undisturbable abode of the eagle, who continued soaring far above our heads, as long as we remained within the precincts of his domain.

We were now so completely enclosed within precipices, impracticable even to a chamois hunter, that further advance seemed not possible; but, by climbing through a steep and

VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT.

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strait gorge, we gained the other side of the mountain, from which a much easier ascent conducted us to the top.

Panting with fatigue and curiosity, I stood at length upon the lofty summit, from which I was to look down upon all Ireland; and I could see "just nothing at all, at all!" The mists, that had frequently during the morning caused me some anxious forebodings, now so entirely enveloped the mountain-top, that for a few minutes nothing whatever was visible. It was a grievous disappointment; but, while vainly striving to pierce the palpable obscure, in an instant the wind scattered the light clouds before it, and the glorious prospect suddenly broke upon me, as by magic, with an effect utterly indescribable.

I remained above an hour on the summit, and believe that I saw every object which, under ordinary circumstances, is ever visible from it; but I never was able to command the whole panorama at the same moment. While

60

VIEW FROM CARRÂN TUAL.

one portion of the landscape was basking in brilliant sunshine, another part was sure to be hidden in fog; which circumstance, however, far from diminishing, greatly increased, the general effect.

I could distinctly trace the line of the Shannon, from its mouth nearly to Limerick, with a large portion of the County Clare beyond it. The broad and rich plain extending from that river up to Killarney was always clear; and most beautifully did its luxuriant corn-fields, now "white to harvest," contrast with the sterile mountains around me. Then Dingle Bay, with its cape, the most western point of Europe-and Kenmare Bay, with the tumultuous assemblage of the Iveragh Mountains between. them-and Bantry Bay, with its lofty and bold coast-and, beyond all these, a boundless expanse of ocean, dotted with several picturesque islands, and bearing here and there a white sail on its dark green bosom.

These were the principal distant objects to