upon the clear autumn sky.  The pass is a mile long, while in no one spot can many yards’ distance be seen on either side.  The road seems to lose itself every moment in the bowels of the mountain, but as you proceed, you find a new avenue of escape, and a more fantastic group of impending rocks of a yet more entrancing beauty than that you had left behind.  In such a scene one could have no feeling of weariness and no sense of fear.  Neither could he doubt man’s truth any more than God’s omnipotence.  We lingered in the solitude and drank the moonbeams as they strayed through disjointed rocks and fell silvery and glowing on our path.  Our reverie ended in a mistake, for we unconsciously passed the point where we should turn to Gougane Barra, then the scene of a ceremony, half religious, half superstitious, as it has been during the autumn season from time immemorial.  People come great distances to perform “stations” on the ruins of a very ancient church on poor Callanan’s “green little island.”  We were advised against returning, but told to seek shelter in a publichouse at a place called Ballingeary, on the banks of Lough Lua through which the infant Lee runs.  We found the house quite full, in consequence of a fair which was to be held the Monday following at Bantry.  We were accordingly refused; but we insisted on remaining in the house.  We had some milk and whisky, in which we asked the host to join us, and after one or two potations, he and his wife offered to give us their own bed and remain up.  We thankfully and gladly accepted the offer.  I know not whether they recognised us, and if not, it is not easy to account for the generous kindness that prompted such a sacrifice.  The next day being Sunday, we proposed to spend it wandering about the lovely lake in the bosom of the hill, and to return in the evening to dinner.  The day was an anxious one; but we left no spot on the island or near the lake which we did not explore.

[Illustration:  Dunmanway from the Bridge on the Cork Road, 1848]

The “Green Little Island,” is surpassingly romantic.  The old ruin of a monastery, God knows how old, gigantic forest trees, bowing their aged limbs into the clear water, the shadows of the frowning mountain thrown fantastically on the bosom of the lake, form a tout ensemble of lonely loveliness rarely equalled.  Then the play of

          “The thousand wild fountains
    Rushing down to that lake from their home in the mountains,”

the scream of the eagle on the crags of Mailoc, far, far on high, all justify Callanan’s preference for the spot which was meetest for the bard.  We endeavoured to recall his tender strains, and thought mournfully of his sad prophecy—­alas! when shall it be fulfilled?