Autumnal Rovings. 203 



and hear their shrill piping and screaming; so close that 

 the opposite coast appears to pass before you like a moving 

 diorama of exquisite scenery. Then, winding round the 

 base of a wood-crowned hill, it runs along the margin of the 

 smaller but not less charming Lough Larne, and lands you 

 close to the pier where the comely scarlet-funnelled steamer 

 snorts impatiently to be released from her moorings. A few 

 revolutions of the paddles and we are in the blue water of 

 the North Channel, heading straight across the narrow 

 waters. 



Nothing would induce me to be unfaithful to Dublin Bay, 

 than which there is no more glorious prospect to the in- 

 coming or departing visitor, save, perhaps, the Cove of Cork, 

 which is so superlatively lovely as to warrant exclusion from 

 an every-day. catalogue. But the North Channel, to be 

 prosaic, has two strings to its bow ; you have scarcely done 

 with Ireland before you have to deal with Scotland, showing 

 that nothing is easier and more agreeable than to be off and 

 on with the old and new loves at discretion. South of 

 Larne is a low craggy headland ; beyond and above are 

 fields, hedged in from the distance like so many pocket- 

 handkerchiefs of assorted patterns and colours, and ranging 

 from the water's edge to the high sky line ; mountains, dark 

 and rolling northwards, darken the background, and as the 

 good ship speeds from shore it is a study, indeed, to watch 

 their solid heads change from blue to grey, and from grey to 

 to impalpable cloud. 



The Maidens, solitary at their posts far from shore, gleam 

 white as nuns in the evening shadows. Be thankful that 

 they are not sirens to lure the hapless mariner to his destruc- 

 tion, but conspicuous beacons warning him of hidden 

 dangers. Away northwards looms very conspicuously a 

 long tongue of land, low-lying at first, but gradually rising to 



