HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



229 



southern side of Barton Broad, in Norfolk. The 

 tall fronds rise to a height of five and six feet, with 

 their brown spore-bearing branches rustling to and 

 fro in the mountain wind. As we passed along the 

 road we saw numbers of ordinary marsh plants, but 

 we were on the outlook for one particular flower 

 which occurs nowhere else in the British Islands, 

 except these western coasts of Ireland. It is 

 one of the heaths, known as St. Dabeoc's (named 

 after an Irish saint), and formerly christened by 

 botanists Dabeocia polifolia, although now, in honour 

 of a Scotchman, its generic name has been unmu- 

 sically changed to that of Mcuzicsia. By and by we 

 came in view of this lovely heath. Great was our 

 joy, for we had never seen it before except in the 

 pages of Sowerby. The reader may well pardon the 

 delight of an ardent botanist at the first sight of this 

 plant, growing in luxuriance in its wild abodes, for 

 its beauty is not exceeded even by the magnificent 

 heaths which have been imported into our green- 



the primitive village and capital inn of Leenane is 

 situated. No better spot for the tourist to rest a few 

 days could be selected than this. Along one moun- 

 tain pass he can proceed to Kylemore Lough, which 

 is, perhaps, the loveliest in Ireland, with the excep- 

 tion of one of the lakes of Killarney, for Kylemore 

 Lough has not only rugged and bare mountains rising 

 around it on every hand, but these are softened down 

 near the margin of the lake by rounded bosses, 

 festooned with honeysuckle, and bramble, and wild 

 rose, the haunt of a thousand plants dear to the 

 botanist, and now bright with three or four species of 

 heath, including an abundance of our prized Dabeocia. 

 Shrubberies of hazel bush, willows, alder, and larch 

 come down to the very edge of the water, while 

 above them stand stately groups of Scotch fir, whose 

 rough stems gather 'all the light that is in the sky 

 and reflect it in the very warmest of colours. Rarely 

 have we been more pleased with a situation than that 

 of Kylemore. At one end stands the magnificent 



Fig. 197. Distant View of the Terraced Hills of the Burren, as seen from North of Galway Bay. 



houses from the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. 

 Its rose-coloured, bell-like flowers are about three 

 times the size of those of our English heaths, which 

 latter grow side by side with it, as if for the sake of 

 comparison. 



After some miles of tramping, the pedestrian will 

 discover that he has passed the highest point of the 

 water-shed, for the streams are now flowing in a 

 different direction. The mountain scenery becomes 

 grander as he proceeds, the mountains appearing to 

 present themselves one after another like the billows 

 of a stormy sea. At length a glimmer of light 

 appears between the hills where the valley ought to 

 be, and we gradually approach Killery Bay. This 

 is a fiord like Clew Bay, extending from the sea 

 sinuously into this mountain land for a distance of 

 twelve or fifteen miles, the mountains rising in some 

 places quite steeply from the water. Various moun- 

 tain streams pour themselves into it at the head where 



seat of Mr. Mitchell-Henry, M.P. for Galway, who 

 has done good work in the neighbourhood by in- 

 ducing the peasantry on his estate to drain the bog 

 lands, so that they are being rapidly^converted into 

 fertile fields. 



From Leenane there are beautiful roads to Delphi, 

 through Glen Fee, and to the Pass of Saal Ruck, a 

 walk of about six or seven miles after having crossed 

 Killery Bay. The bay is full of fish, especially 

 mackerel and whiting, and this delicate food can be 

 obtained in almost unlimited quantity. From Leenane 

 to Cliefden is about twenty-four miles, and Kylemore 

 Lough may be taken on the road. Towards Letter- 

 frack we were particularly struck by the signs the 

 landscape presents of the influence which moving 

 ice has exerted in this region. During all our 

 journeyings we had been beset by the strongest evi- 

 dence of this kind, but nowhere is it more plainly 

 seen than at Letterfrack. Husre hillocks of refuse 



