Autumnal Rovings. 193 



circle is beautifully regular, and the pillars, some eighty and 

 some sixty feet high, stand with all the nicety of mechanical 

 arrangement, not unworthy of association with the Giant's 

 loom, Giant's ball alley, Giant's pulpit, and Giant's bag- 

 pipes. 



A night's halt at quaint, quiet old Antrim, with its 

 miniature Town Hall, and long, wide, clean main street, 

 will agreeably break the journey from Portrush to Belfast. 

 There is not much on the line of railway to attract attention 

 or excite admiration. Mountains — as they count mountains 

 in Londonderry and in Donegal, where the Highlands are 

 quite worthy of that name — are not as a rule a plentiful 

 article in county Antrim, although to an Englishman who 

 has not qualified as a connoisseur in such matters, there are 

 some eminences that require a considerable amount of 

 climbing, and a few ranges that find a place upon the map 

 even along the track traversed by the Northern Counties 

 Railroad. In the north-western portion of the county 

 there are mountains running to a height of over 1800 feet, 

 but even this altitude is not reached by the hills which run 

 parallel with a portion of the route. 



It is not cause, therefore, for poignant regret if the railway 

 windows, as will often happen in this land of perpetual 

 atmospheric weeping, are dimmed and blurred with rain. 

 Get out at Antrim by all means, for thereby hangs a tale — 

 the startling tale told apropos of Shane's Castle, which has 

 more foundation in veritable history than the reputed life 

 and times of our friend Fin MacCoul. A visit to Shane's 

 Castle involves acquaintance with Lough Neagh, the largest 

 lake in the three kingdoms, and therefore entitled to all 

 veneration. 



o 



