and three broad in the widest part, has thirty glimpses of the lake, its variegated shores, and islands, the largest of which, Ross, contains one of the mountain peaks, making a panorama of hundred and sixty acres. On the island are exceeding beauty. The lakes have the peculthe ruins of Ross Castle, nearly covered by ivy, iarity of most of those in Europe-winding like built by one of the countless O'Donoghues, a river through the woods and mountains, and whose descendants lived there for three or four often so landlocked that it appears impossible hundred years. The castle has its inevitable to advance, no opening even large enough for legends. One of them is that a member of the your little boat being any where visible. O'Donoghue family-whether Michael or Dennis or Patrick is not stated-awakes from his grave-sleep every seven years, rides over the lake at the first flush of dawn on his milk-white steed to the castle, which, the moment he reaches it, is restored by magic, and remains as it was in the fourteenth century until the sun appearing above the woods returns it to decay. The castle was the last Munster strong-hold surrendered to Cromwell. Near the village of Cloghreen, two and a half miles from Killarney, are the ruins of Muckross Abbey, both church and monastery being kept in excellent condition by the proprietor of the demesne. Some of the kings of Munster-kings must have grown on every bush in Ireland-are said to be buried there; but as there were so many of those crowned and sceptred gentlemen, I opine it was not thought worth while to denote their resting-place. The vault of the Not far from Ross is Innisfallen Island, near M'Carthys, however, is in the centre of the choir, the middle of the lake. It seems to be covered and marked by a monument rudely sculptured. with an impervious wood; but after landing I In the midst of the cloister is a very aged yew, found beyond the leafy screen beautiful glades which I was told is the largest of the kind in and lawns, embellished by thickets of flowering Ireland. I don't know whether the shilling I shrubs, clumps of arbutus, and magnificent trees. paid was for the tree or the information, Through the openings of the foliage I caught though I suspect that if I had given a six pence there would have been larger trees in the country. In the vicinity of the lakes are numerous cascades, of which the Torc (between the Torc and Mangerton mountains), formed by two streams, tumbles over a broken ledge of rocks, and is thrown into striking relief by the fir-covered sides of the chasm. The other falls are more remarkable for their names, such as Derricunnihy and Esknamucky, which, pronounced in the vernacular, affected my ear as if I had been shot in the head with a bewildered alphabet. The annoyances and importunities from beggars, pipers, guides, donkey-drivers, and vendors of every thing you don't want, mar very seriously the pleasure of a visit to Killarney. No place approaches it in power of excessive boredom in all Europe, except the Bernese Oberland. The women who insist upon selling arbutus-wood and bog-oak ornaments, Limerick lace and mountain dew (goat's milk and whisky), are the worst of all the tormentors. They are more difficult to silence or shake off than any petticoated persecutors I have met, not excepting the feminine book agents who pervade every quarter of Manhattan. They follow you more devotedly than Ruth did Naomi, and stick to you like poverty to a poet. The chroniclers of the country take pains to assure travelers that those wild Irish girls are as impregnable in continence as they are obnoxious in perseverance; and I am confident no tourist of taste would seek to disprove the promises made for them. Five miles from Cork, which is reached by rail or by car, are Blarney and its famous castle. The Cork cars, by-the-by, are different from those in any other part of Ireland, being small, square, covered boxes with seats on the side, but not over the wheels, looking like segments of our own omnibuses. Every body knows that kissing the Blarney Stone is synonymous with a fluent and flattering tongue regardless of sincerity. Every Irishman south of the Liffey is popularly supposed to have enjoyed the renowned osculation; and though very few have, to none of them is denied the wheedling gift it is presumed to bestow, any more than that derived from a dip in the Shannon, that makes perfect the quality of impudence, or, as the natives euphemistically express it, civil courage. The origin of the term Blarney and of the Blarney Stone is told in numberless traditions. Crofton Croker states --and this is the most plausible of all the stories -that in 1602, when the Spaniards were urging the Irish chieftains to harass the English, one Cormach M'Dermod Carty, who held the castle, had concluded an armistice with the Lord President on condition of surrendering it to an English garrison. Carty put off his lordship day after day, with fair promises and false pretexts, until the latter became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth's ministers, and the former's honeyed and delusive speeches were stamped with the title of Blarney. Father Prout, in his popular papers, speaks of the stone as the palladium of Ireland, and attempts to show, drolly enough, that it was brought over by the Phoenician colony said to have peopled the island; that the Syrians and Carthaginians, long its custodians, gave rise to the expression Punica fides Syriosque bilingues from their labial devotion to the stone. He adds that some Carthaginian adventurers, enamored of the relic, stole it and carried it off to Minorca, and afterward, driven by a storm into Cork Harbor, deposited it near the present spot. From the same high authority we learn that the "Groves of Blarney" was translated from the Greek, though the well-known song was written only seventy years ago by Richard Milliken, a Cork lawyer, as a burlesque on some doggerel rhymes about Castle Hyde. There are several Blarney Stones, and the garrulous old woman, who has been, she says, custodian there for forty years, regulates her choice of the veritable Blarney according to the visitor's willingness and capacity to climb. She told me first that the real stone had been knocked off by some "indacent blackgeeards,' and was lying on the ground near the door I entered. I informed her I knew better; that she had found the invention convenient because most persons preferred to touch that stone with their lips rather than take the trouble of reaching the genuine one. The great original is at the northern angle of the massive donjon, about one hundred and twenty feet high, which, with a lower and greatly decayed portion of the castle, is all the ruin that remains. It is some distance below the summit, and bears the inscription, now very dim, "Cormach MacCarthy fortis me fieri facit, A.D. 1446." If it were very easy to kiss the stone (is it with women as with it?), perhaps fewer persons would kiss it; but as the caressing performance requires that one shall be held over the parapet by the heels, I put mine in charge of my companion, fresh from Oxford, who took his pay for his trouble by pronouncing me a oxoλaoriós, presuming, no doubt, that the classicism would either disarm the offense or soften the justice of the charge. The old castle, covered with ivy, stands on the side of a steep limestone ridge, rising from a deep valley on the bank of a small river (the Au-Martin, which washes part of the base), and adds greatly to the interest and beauty of the surrounding landscape. The grounds adjoining the castle are the celebrated Groves of Blarney, to which the loquacious gate-keeper admits you when by his practical knowledge of physiognomy he discovers a shilling in your face. He persists in telling you the Groves are "bayutiful, daliteful, and shplendid," conscious, probably, that without his assistance you would arrive at no such conclusion. The Groves, nothing but a thick shrubbery of laurel-trees, long divested of the grottoes and rustic bridges that once adorned them, are only worth seeing because, if you neglected them, you would hear from somebody else how much you had of passionate sorrow that at first smote my heart. missed. The persons who were going away were accomCork, with a population of nearly 100,000, panied to the stations by all their relatives and ranks next to Dublin and Belfast. A large friends; and such sobbing and weeping, such part of the city is built between the dividing intense embraces and clasping of arms, such branches of the Lee. The Mall, Patrick, gesticulations and ejaculations, such invocaGeorge, and the Grand Parade are the princi- tions to Heaven and hurling of shoes-not pal streets, but have no architectural attrac-worn, but brought along for the purpose-it tions, as the buildings, both public and private, had never before been my lot to witness. Chilare irregular and unhandsome. The principal lion is the Shandon steeple, the spire of Saint Anne, which, as the church is built on an eminence, is visible from every part of the city. The steeple is composed of the limestone of a demolished abbey and the red sandstone of a ruined castle, making three of the sides white and the remaining one red; so that it seems not unlike an ecclesiastic barber's pole. Father Prout's familiar lines, "The bells of Shandon, They sound so grand on The banks of Lee," dren, women, young men and old, made watercarts of themselves, as Mr. Samuel Weller would put it. Young women threw themselves on the ground and tore their hair, and seemed resolved to beat their brains out against the nearest wall. Old women wrapped their heads in the ragged cloaks they are never without, and, swaying to and fro, uttered those peculiar wails and cries the genuine ulalulu-which they always employ as a chorus to misfortune. The men kissed and clung to each other as a doting woman would to her lover on his way to certain death; and the little children were as melodramatically have done more than any thing else to make afflicted as if dirt and mothers were banished the church and the spire famous. The Queen's College is very picturesquely situated on a height overlooking the river, and, looming out from the midst of trees growing down to the edge of the stream below, commands a magnificent view. from the world. Nothing in the direst woes of Verdi's lyric dramas, even as represented at the Grand Opéra, surpassed the exhibition of mental agony I would have been only too glad to escape from. If actual heart-break be possible, it will surely take place among these poor peasants, I thought. Having on several occasions, however, concluded not to take the trains on which the emigrants went, I discovered that those who remained behind could, like the ultra-sentimental of all nations, die of grief without recourse to the physician, the priest, or the undertaker. As the cars passed out of sight eyes were dried, hysterics disappeared, crushed souls were restored, and the joyous sun again flashed through the pall of sundered clouds. In fifteen minutes the women chattered and laughed, the children made bog-puddlings (we call them dirt-pies), and roared with delight, while the men, smoking their "dudeens" and draining the bottle to their departed friends, were merry as crickets once more. No one should fail to go down the Lee to Queenstown, a distance of twelve miles. The Cove of Cork is renowned for its beauty, and deserves all its reputation. The slopes of the northern bank are crowned with terraces and villas, and between the demesnes of Tivoli and Feltrim the channel sweeps to the south, and carries you by Dundanion Castle and its pleasant grounds. On the right bank of the river, opposite the village of Blackrock, is the Ursuline Convent, one of the best known institutions of its kind in Ireland; and further down is the Blackrock Castle, built in the Gothic style on projecting rocks, and completely commanding that part of the river. You also steam by Castle Mahon, formerly the residence of Lady Chatterton, a writer of some distinction; by Their sorrow was genuine, but it was not lastthe town of Passage, to which Croker has given ing, fortunately, for it would soon kill in such lyrical fame, celebrating in verse the charms of large and strong doses. The Irish, especially its anonymous maid; by the Giant's Stairs, a the Southern, are supremely emotional and exname given to some natural steps in the cliff; citable. Very easily moved, they quickly react by the pretty village of Monkstown; and by from sorrow, which is not natural to them as a Rocky Island, which would be well worth at- permanent feeling, and regain the state of cheertention if the ten thousand barrels of gunpow-fulness and gayety that belongs to their merder usually stored in the hewn-out chambers of curial temperament. They enjoy the emotionthe rock should simultaneously explode. Queenstown is associated with the emigrants who are continually flocking to this country. I had expected to find them indulging in every form of fantastic grief as they parted from the land they seem to love so much, and yet are so glad to quit; but they bore the separation with due resignation. The truth is, the emigrants display their grief and exhaust their sentiment of pathos when they leave their immediate homes. At Tralee, Limerick, Kildare, Kilkenny, and other places, I had been the witness of scenes VOL. XLII.-No. 250.-33 al, cultivating rather than resisting it; are happy in their unique way both at wakes and weddings, at fights and funerals, in the midst of penury and surrounded by abundance. It is not strange the common people want to come to America, the land of promise and El Dorado indeed likened to their own. Ireland is better to look at than to live in. An artist may make pictures there, but the laborer with difficulty earns his bread. Rocks and lakes and mountains are excellent for landscape, but hard for the tiller of the soil. Most of Leinster. Con naught, and Munster is a wretched country, and | sis or classification, and are as much a mystery nearly all the South is sterile and boggy. For to themselves and each other as to external miles and miles nothing but stunted herbage nations. Where or under what circumstances and beds of peat, a robust but ragged peasant- they would succeed best no one may say; even ry, miserable hovels, and an air of recklessness they do not conjecture a future, which, with all and desolation on every hand, indifference and their boasted past, they have never calmly conimprovidence to-day, and heedlessness of to- sidered. morrow. A mildew is on the land; it steadily declines and hopelessly decays. The Irish, I repeat, ascribe their unfortunate condition to the English; the English trace it to their want of knowledge, energy, and character; to superstition, bigotry, intemperance, and thriftlessness. Perhaps the truth lies between the two. At any rate, Ireland is not the kind of country for the Irish. They have not the qualities nor the habits to develop a land so little favored by nature, and it would seem that before many years the entire population will be transferred to our shores. The Irish future lies in America. There is no doubt in my mind that the Catholic Irish are different from any other people under the sun. Their virtues, no less than their vices, are their own, and it is almost impossible to judge them by ordinary rules. They defy analy They are told that they suffer here by sticking to the cities, instead of seeking the country and making themselves independent. But on their own soil they flourish no better in the rural regions than in the social centres. Their hovels are the most miserable in Europe, and their state the poorest. With an earth floor, a rude chimney, a bed of peat, a wife and a dozen children, a pound of tobacco and a spirit-shop not far away, without a shilling or a prospect, they are easy-minded and happy-go-lucky to a degree that no Anglo-Saxon can understand. When we should go mad, or blow our brains out from sheer desperation, they will whistle and dance in their dirt and rags, and lie down to a deeper and sweeter sleep, with starvation and typhus in the hut, than any one of us, under the most favorable circumstances, would enjoy on a pillow of fragrant down. COTTAGE AND HALL. BY ALICE CARY. WITH eyes to her sewing-work dropped down, A garden nook with work and book; And the bars that crossed her girlish gown Were as blue as the flaxen flower. And her little heart, it beat and beat, Till the work shook on her knee, For the golden combs are not so sweet To the honey-fasting bee As to her her thoughts of Alexis. And across a good green piece of wood, And Janey turned things in and out, The loving mother-heart was full Of her boy gone to sea Her blue-eyed boy, her pride and joy, Her darling boy, Alexis. And beyond the good green piece of wood, A lofty hall, where mistress of all It would be so fine like a lady to shine, And suns have risen and suns gone down And the tangled curls o'er the eyes dove-brown Nor are there bars in the homespun gown Ay, winter wind and winter rain Ah, bright were the sweet young cheeks and eyes, And the silken gown was gay, When first to the hall as mistress of all She came on her wedding-day. "Now where, my bride," says the groom in pride"Now where will your chamber be ?" And from wall to wall she praises all, But chooses the one by the sea! And the suns they rise and the suns they set, For often her eyes with tears are wet, For when her ladies gird at her, And alway, when the dance is done, APE FLORIDA, a point of great interest | elders loaded with their brilliant blossoms-al ters, is Key Buisquine, forming with Virginia Key the eastern extremity of the Florida Reef, and situated seven miles from the nearest main land of the peninsula, at the head of Buisquine Bay. The entrance to the little stream is particularly pleasant; the banks are green to the water's edge with tall flowing grasses and water-plants. On the clear amber surface are deep shadows, and the reflections of beautiful forms contrast broad patch of sunlight tinted quite to brilliancy the shelving white sands of the beach. Climbing vines and flowering plants and shrubs hang over the cliff. There is a charm unspeakable in the view of these broad leaves and nodding plumes of wild, tangled way-sides. A light of the highest power is here mount-picture-like with the opposite bank, where a ed, which, with the great Loggerhead light at the extreme western end, and the intermediate cordon of skeleton towers and beacons that rise from the waters of the dreaded reef, forms a mighty arm of protection. The labors of our party being over, we left the Oriental at anchor for the night, and sailed across the bay to the mouth of the Miami, where we were to meet the overland party of telegraphic surveyors. Though dignified by the name of river, the Miami is a mere outlet of the fresh water of the Everglades, yet picturesque and full of quiet beauty, derived from the luxuriant foliage of its banks. The old garrison of Fort Dallas is in full view as we approach. The neat cottage-barracks, with broad verandas, arranged pleasingly around a fine sloping parade-tall cocoas, lime-trees, and rich groupings of poncianas and At the close of the last Indian war this fort, like many others in the State, was abandoned. Indications remain, however, to show that the plan was an excellent one. The oolitic rock of the region was used freely in the construction of the buildings. Ledges of this rock crop out abundantly, and it is easily worked to the required shape by axes. Resting upon the old coral formation, it seems to be composed of agglutinated masses of calcareous sand and mud. In some instances large portions have a crystalline structure, like calc spar. The old barracks are now occupied by two |