KILLARNEY AND WHEN TO SEE IT. 
By T. O. RussE.t. 
The great fleet of ocean steamers will soon 
be taking thousands of Americans over the 
Atlantic to enjoy the mild summer and varied 
scenery of Europe. Most Americans who go 
to Europe in search of the picturesque come 
back to their native land disappointed, although 
it may be wiser. Those in search of the beau- 
tiful do not need to go outside of this continent 
to find it, but it would seem that no matter 
what new places of scenic interest may abound 
in America, its wealthy classes are not satisfied 
with them, for the annual exodus over the At- 
lantic is ever increasing in volume. 
Great Britain receives a large share of the 
wealthy American tourists, but Ireland, in 
spite of the fact of its being the nearest part of 
Europe to America, receives only a compara- 
tively small part of them. They hasten on to 
the continent, Switzerland being the bourne for 
which most of them aim. Notwithstanding the 
fact that Ireland is the nearest part of Europe 
to America, it is less like America in a scenic 
point of view than is any other part of the Old 
World. A native of almost any part of the 
Mississippi valley, were he transported to the 
steppes of Southern Russia or to the banks of 
the Loire or the Elbe, would not notice any 
very marked difference in the aspect of the 
country from the land in which he had been 
raised ; but the American who visits Ireland 
for the first time will find himself in a country 
so strange in aspect and so unlike his own, that 
he will imagine he is in another planet instead 
of on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Except some favored spots in Switzerland or 
France, there is no spot of European soil more 
famed for beauty than Killarney. Its very 
name is beautiful, as any one can know who" 
has heard Balfe’s grand song, “ Killarney.” 
No sounds more harmonious or more fitted 
for a refrain could be uttered by the organs of 
speech. The name signifies in Gaelic, the 
church of the sloe or wild plumtree. The real 
name of the lake, or chain of lakes, which is 
the great charm of Killarney, is Loch Lein, but 
the latter name is now almost obsolete. 
Before attempting to describe Killarney, it 
will be well to give the reader an extract from 
’ with it. 
_ Macauley’s ‘‘ History of England.” The passage 
is a masterpiece of prose. It is a sketch of the 
scenic characteristics of that part of Ireland 
where the famous lakes are situated: 
“The southwestern part of Kerry is now 
well known as the most beautiful tract in the 
British Isles. The mountains, the glens, the 
capes stretching far out into the Atlantic, the 
crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets. 
branching down rocky passes, the lakes over- 
hung by groves, in which wild deer find covert, 
attract every summer crowds of wanderers. 
sated with business and the pleasures of great. 
cities. The beauties of that country are often, 
indeed, hidden in the mist and rain that the 
west wind brings up from the boundless ocean. 
But on rare days, when the sun shines out in 
all his glory, the landscape has a freshness and 
warmth of coloring seldom found in our lati- 
tude. The myrtle loves the soil; the arbutus 
thrives better than in Calabria; the turf has a 
livelier hue than elsewhere; the hills glow with 
a richer purple; the varnish of the holly and 
the ivy is more glossy, and berries of a brighter 
red peep through foliage of a brighter green.”* 
Macauley, in spite of his Celtic name, was a 
fierce hater of Ireland and the Irish, and there 
is no reason to suppose that the above most 
wonderful word-painting was evoked by any 
liking for the land it describes. 
The American who expects to find the gran- 
deur of the Rocky Mountains in Killarney wiil 
be wofully disappointed. The entire area of 
the beauties of Killarney is hardly more than 
ten or twelve miles square. It could be ridden 
round in a day. The most wonderful of the 
many wonders of Killarney is the variety of 
scenery in so small a compass. In this respect 
no other part of the known world can compare 
Every possible phase of Nature, every- 
thing she could do with land and water, can be 
found in Killarney, and found on a little spot 
of earth hardly as large again as Manhattan 
Island. Mountains, lakes, rivers, rocks, woods, 
waterfalls, flowery islands, green meadows and 
glistening strands, almost exhaust Nature’s. 

* History of England, Vol. III., p. 107. 
