OF A TOUR IN IRELAND. 125 
Having thus discharged my bile against the disadvantages of 
Killarney, I will return to my more settled object. The penin- 
sula of Mucruss, most of Lord. Kenmare’s park, and several 
rocky prominences besides, are of limestone. It never rises 
high, nor does it anywhere form part of the mountains, yet I 
was disappointed in not finding on it any one of those plants 
which usually characterize a calcareous soil in England. Pimpi- 
nella magna, of which I observed two or three plants on a wall 
at Mucruss, is I think the only exception ; and perhaps Epipactis 
latifolia may delight in such a soil. One or two of the foreign 
Cisti have been planted, and look almost naturalized, but there is 
no native Helianthemum. In the grounds at Mucruss Rubia pere- 
grina makes its appearance, and Lastrea Thelypteris. Equisetum 
Mackaii 1s said to be there, but I did not see it. Achillea Ptar- 
mica and Lychnis dioica I did see,—both great rarities in the 
south of Ireland. 
I took a boat to the head of the upper lake, and thence as- 
cended to the top of the Gap of Dunloh. Nobody suspects Lord 
Kenmare or Mr. Herbert of making a profit by permitting their 
servants to admit you to their grounds; but the owner of a cot- 
tage at the end of the upper lake exacts a toll from those who 
pass to or from the Gap of Dunloh, and the permission to make 
a round which is generally laid out for the tourist at Killarney 
depends upon the avarice or caprice of an individual. The view 
from the summit of the pass and from some parts of the descent 
is very fine, but as a mountain hollow the Gap of Dunloh is not 
to be compared’ to Coom-na-Capel (the Glen of the Horse), to 
which there is no path, and which hardly anybody visits. 
On the ascent towards the Gap I was offered some very indif- 
ferent specimens of 7richomanes radicans. The original place 
of its discovery was, I believe, Tore waterfall, whence it has long 
disappeared. Hundreds of sharp eyes are employed in discover- 
ing it in new places, and hundreds of active hands im eradicating 
it as soon as discovered ; and while the children can get a shilling 
for a single frond it is not likely to have an opportunity of in- 
ereasing itself. The process implies that new places are conti- 
nually found; but there is very little chance that a passing 
stranger should hit on any of these, though his eyes and legs 
may be much better than can be expected from a man on the 
verge of eighty. 
