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coast, stood Dow Castle, belonging to General Hart, apparently an ancient fortress, but seeming not to enjoy much of the care or presence of its owner. Northward of Dow Castle lay the Sands of Rosapenna, a scene that almost realised in Ireland the sandy desert of Arabia ; a line of coast and country extending from the sea, deep into the land, until it almost meets the mountain on which we stood, and exhibiting one wide waste of red sand; for miles not a blade of grass, not a particle of verdure, hills and dales and undulating swells, smooth, solitary, desolate, reflecting the sun from their polished surface of one uniform and flesh-like hue.* Fifty years ago this line of

* I have been informed by a friend resident in the neighbood of Rosapenna, that the blowing of the sand to its present extent, may be attributed to the introduction of rabbits that were permitted to encrease, and their burrowing disturbing the bent grass which kept the sand down; the tremendous west and north-west winds on this coast began, and have continued to operate with encreasing mischief.

At Rutland, in that district of Donegal called the Rossesthere was expended about forty years ago the sum of £30,000, which expenditure was defrayed, partly by Government, and partly by the landlord, Marquess Conyngham, in order to create a town and fishing establishment on a coast that teemed

coast was as highly improved in its way, as Ards on the opposite side of the bay now is it was the much ornamented demesne, and contained the comfortable mansion of Lord Boyne, an old fashioned manorial house and gardens, planted and laid out in the taste of that time, with avenues, terraces, hedges and statues, surrounded with walled parks, and altogether the first residence of a nobleman-the country around a green sheep walk. Now not a vestige of all this to be seen; one common waste of sand, one undistinguished ruin covers all. Where is the house? under the sandwhere the trees, the walks, the terraces, the green parks and sheep walks? all under the sand-lately the top of the house was visible, and the country people used to descend by the roof into some of the apartments that were not filled up, but now nothing is to be

with herrings. It is a curious fact, that the year after these buildings were erected and all the expense incurred, the herrings deserted the coast; and what is equally surprising-the sands began to blow, and now large ranges of lofty buildings three or four stories high, are covered on the sea-side with sand-you can walk up to the ridge poles of the roof.

seen. The Spirit of the Western Ocean has
risen in his wrath, and realised here the
description Bruce gives of the moving pil-
lars of sand in the deserts of Sennaar; or it
recals to memory the grand description which
Darwin gives of the destruction of the army
of Cambyses in the Nubian desert.
reader may pardon me for quoting it,

Gnomes, o'er the waste, you led your myriad powers,
Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers;
Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge,

Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge;
Wave over wave the driving desert swims,

The

Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs ;
Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,

Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush:
Wheeling in air, the winged islands fall-

And one great sandy ocean covers all !

Nothing, indeed, as I am told, can exceed the wintry horrors of the north-westerly storm, when it sets in on this coast, and its force has been for the last half century increasing. The Atlantic bursting in, mountainhigh, along the cliffs the spray flying over the barrier mountain we were standing on, and falling miles inland, the sand sleeting thicker

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and more intolerable than any hail-storm, filling the eyes, mouth, and ears, of the inhabitants — levelling ditches, overtoping walls, and threatening to lay not only Rosapenna, but the whole line of coast at some not very distant period, in one common waste and ruin; and to increase the horrors of the tempest, M'Swine's Gun* is heard firing nature's signal of distress, and the report (heard 20 or 30 miles inland) announces that earth and ocean are labouring in the hurricane.

But to return to Lough Salt:-After looking along the coast and satisfying your eye with its very varied outlines, you have time to take a view in another direction; to the south-west, towards the immense precipitous mountain called Muckish, so named from its resemblance to a pig's back-not a fat pig of the Berkshire or Cheshire breed, but a right old Irish pig, with a high and sharp back, every articulation of the back-bone prominent and bristled. I think it is one of the highest

*M'Swine's Gun is a natural phenomenon on the coast, which shall be more fully described hereafter.

(if not the very highest) mountains in Ireland. But, with the reader's leave, I mean to give hereafter a narrative of an excursion to its summit. To the south lay an immense mass of mountains, stretching toward Donegal bay, over which, rising above the rest in conical elevation, stood Arrigal: in comparison with which, the hill over Powerscourt is but a a grocer's sugar-loaf ;—and still more distant to the south-east lay the mountains of Barnesmore, in which is the celebrated defile-of it the Scalp in the county Wicklow, is indeed but a very miniature representation.

But directly under us was a most curious picture to be seen: the mountain on which we stood, as it descended to the west, presented sundry shelves or vallies, in each of which lay a round and beauteous lake. These Tarns looked like mirrors set in the mountain's side to reflect the upright sun; and five or six of such sheets of silver presented themselves, until at the very root of the mountain, a large expanse of water, a mile or two over, studded with islands, sufficiently wooded to

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