and runs forward into the county of Tyrone. Through this chain, which is very precipitous and almost inaccessible, nature has cut this extraordinary gap, and through it a very level roads leads you into the low country bordering on the bay of Donegal-on either side the mountain rose abrupt and almost perpendicular. It was a grey cold morning in September, when I passed through, a fog rather than a cloud had wreathed itself around the heads of the hills, and left you to guess at their elevations. The water-worn chasms that were channelled in the sides of the mountain to the right and left were now dry and black-the heath was in its autumnal bloom, and the yellow flowered furze flaunted around in its unprofitable gaiety, and here and there a stunted oak or birch, gave sufficient vegetation to the Alpine picture to make it sublime without being desolate. There was a stream, or rather a strand of one, (for the weather was very dry,) winding through a defile; but there was sufficient evidence what a torrent it must be, after autumnal or wintry rains. Oh how I wished, even at the expense of a thorough wetting, to go through this pass after a fall of rain-to see hundreds of cataracts tumbling headlong on either side-to hear the rush of the river, the roar of waterfalls, and moanings of the mountain blast-realising the Poet's description, when Red came the river down, And loud and long the angry spirit of the waters shrieked. Just at the northern entrance of the pass you observe a square sort of castelated ruin on a position commanding the defile. It was erected in King James's war, and here it is said that Rapin, one of those French Huguenots who did William such good military service, and who have been beneficial to every country where they took refuge.-here it is said this honest and impartial historian compiled his voluminous history. But no matter when the grey and massy walls of this old fort were built, or who were its successive keepers; the defile itself has seen many a warrior and many a plunderer pass for battle or for prey, through its open mouth-often through it have the clans of O'Neil and O'Donnel rushed to join Maguire of Fermanagh, in attacking the English fortresses on the Shannon, or in spreading desolation over the plains of Sligo and Roscommon; through this pass Ebher M'Mahon the Popish Bishop and General, led the victorious veterans of Benburb to fight the Cromwellians at Letterkenny, when with sword in one hand, and breviary in the other, he headed his men to the charge, and fought for, and lost his cause and his life. Through this pass the brave Enniskilleners in King William's wars held communication with their * Owen Roe O'Neal defeated the Parliamentary Scotch forces at Benburb, with the loss of 3200 men, with all their artillery and baggage: Monroe, the Scotch General, fled without hat, wig, or coat. Owen Roe's army was all composed of old Irish Macs and O's. The Papal Nuncio Rinuccini, writing to Rome an account of this victory, announces, "that the army of your HOLINESS has obtained in Ulster, a signal victory, with the slaughter of almost the whole of the Puritan forces-curious perversion of words: a thing called a HOLINESS, committing slaughter on a thing called a PURITAN. fellow sufferers and fellow conquerors of Derry. But what is this to my present purpose, it is no reason because I am proceeding to Purgatory that I should put my reader into it before his time, by imposing on him the perusal of dull description, and old historical events-so to proceed-nor shall I detain you gentle reader with an account of my journey from Bearnosmore to Petigo in the vicinity of which lies Lough Derg. I shall briefly say that except about the town of Donegal the country is dreary and desolate in the extreme; I have seldom travelled in a more uninteresting extent of moorland, than what lies here in all its solitariness before you; but when you descend within two miles of this latter village, the road falls towards Lough Erne, and you get a very noble and extended view of this fine Lake, which is more expanded here, and less beset with islands than elsewhere-the great fault of Lough Erne is that it is too much incumbered with hilly islands, so as to give you rather the idea of a hill country, with its low lands flooded, than of a broad sweeping expanse of lake. Indeed the ancient tradition is that such was the origin of Lough Erne-Giraldus Cambrensis with his usual gravity and attention to truth, assures us that this district of country was inhabited by a people that became fearfully and incorrigibly vicious-so much so that Sodom would have blushed at the deeds they perpetrated, and therefore the Sovereign Judge of the earth, decided that this land so defiled, should be covered with a flood of waters, as a signal memorial of his wrath, and this is the way that the vengeance was inflicted-a certain Well lay in one of its central vallies, concerning which there was a prophetical decree that if it were at any time left uncovered, it would overflow and drown the whole district, and therefore it had a good close lid fixed on it, not forgetting a hasp and padlock-but so it happened on a day, that a woman came to the well to draw water, and just as she had filled her vessel, she heard her child cry at a distance, and supposing it to be attacked by a |