between the waters of the lake and river, has been called
O'Sullivan's Punch Bowl. Drohid-na-Brickeen, "The Bridge of Little
Trout," or Brickeen Bridge, and Doolah, where the disused marble
quarries and copper mines are still pointed out, are within a short
distance. At the estuary of the Devil's Stream, which flows through the
ravines on the mountain side, is the Devil's Island--almost
inaccessible--on which a few stunted trees manage to secure a precarious
existence. Within the little bay of Dundag is Goose Island. The rocks
and caves along the lake shores are shrouded with traditions of
O'Donoghue, Chieftain of the Glens. A long cave is called "The Wine
Cellar"; at the end is "O'Donoghue's Arm Chair"; his Butler, a solitary
crag, is called "Jackybwee." The most interesting of the fissures made
by the waters in the rock side are what the enterprising boatmen have
agreed to call "Colleen Bawn Rock." By the beautiful Glena Bay, we enter
the Lower Lake, which is the largest and most charming of the group. It
sleeps beneath the guardian heights of the Toomies Hills, and a vision
of more loveliness is nowhere to be found. Low-lying shores, to the east
and north, are jungled with the fronds of the hill ferns.

"Oh, the Fern! the fresh hill Fern!
That girds our blue lakes from Lough Ine to Lough Erne;
That waves on the crags, like the plume of a King,
And bends like a nun, over clear well and spring;
The fairy's tall palm-tree, the heath birds fresh nest,
And the couch the red deer deems the sweetest and best;
With the free winds to fan it, and dew-drops to gem,
Oh, what can ye match with its beautiful stem!"

[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ Eagle's Nest Mountain,
Killarney.]

The highest mountain in Ireland, ~Carrantual~,[4] at one side lifts its
lofty brow, "crowned with tiaras fashioned in the sky." On its summit an
outlaw, known in Munster as the "Shon" or Hawk, after many sleepless
nights, footsore and weary, slept here with a prayer, "Thank God, at
last I am above all my enemies." The peasantry pronounce the name
"Carntwohill," which translated means, the left-handed or inverted
sickle. The expansiveness of the Lower Lake appears at first to minimise
its beauty, when compared with its smaller companions. But the more its
loveliness is explored, the greater the revelation of the harmony and
luxuriance of the landscape. No less than thirty-five islands, like
beauty spots of a fairy "drop sce