78 VIEW FEOM CARRIGOGUNNIEL. 



behind it the Keeper mountains of Tipperarj ; to the 

 south, a background of hills dividing Limerick from 

 Cork ; and between them and us, and beneath us, miles 

 and miles of a rich wooded country — the whole present- 

 ing a scene of natural fertility and beauty which can 

 scarcely be surpassed. With a change of names, the 

 words of Scott describe this scene, — 



" The wandering eye could o'er it go, 

 And mark the distant city glow 



With gloomy splendour red ; 

 For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow, 

 That round her sable turrets flow, 



The noonday beams were shed, 

 And tinged them with a lustre proud, 

 Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud. 



" While eastward far, with purer blaze, 

 On Keeper mountains fell the rays, 

 And as each heathy top they kissed, 

 It gleamed a purple amethyst. 

 Yonder the shoaes of Clare you viewed, 

 Bunratty's walls, and Cratloe's wood ; 



And, broad, beneath us roll'd, 

 The Shannon's stream, the eye might note, 

 Whose islands on its bosom float 



Like emeralds chased in gold." 



Leaving this beautiful scene, we walked down into the 

 country, to examine it more narrowly. The richest 

 verdure clothes the field where nature has been allowed 

 to do her work unheeded. Weeds and thistles are the 

 unfailing accompaniment of a tillage, guided by the reck- 

 less necessity without the industry of man ; and here 

 the rich soil covers itself luxuriantly with these, as soon 

 as the careless cultivator removes his scanty crop and 

 leaves the land to nature for the winter. 



Below Carrigogunniel there is for sale a very valuable 

 farm of 740 English acres. Three-fourths of it is 



