CORK, Sunday, Feb. 26.—­I went out to-day with Mr. Cameron to see Blarney Castle and St. Anne’s Hill.  Nothing can be lovelier than the country around Cork and the valley of the Lea.  A “light railway,” of the sort authorised by the Act of 1883, takes you out quickly enough to Blarney, and the train was well filled.  The construction of these railways is found fault with as aggravating instead of relieving those defects in the organisation and management of the Irish railways, which are so thoroughly and intelligently exposed in the Public Works Report of Sir James Allport and his fellow-commissioners.  A morning paper to-day points this out sharply.

In the days of King William III.  Blarney Castle must have been a magnificent stronghold.  It stands very finely on a well-wooded height, and dominates the land for miles around.  But it held out against the victor of the Boyne so long that, when he captured it, he thought it best, in the expressive phrase of the Commonwealth, to “slight” it, little now remaining of it but the gigantic keep, the walls of which are some six yards thick, and a range of ruined outworks stretching along and above a line of caverns, probably the work of the quarrymen who got out the stone for the Castle ages ago.  The legend of the Blarney Stone does not seem to be a hundred years old, but the stone itself is one of the front battlements of the grand old tower, which has more than once fallen to the ground from the giddy height at which it was originally set.  It is now made fast there by iron clamps, in such a position that to kiss it one should be a Japanese acrobat, or a volunteer rifleman shooting for the championship of the world.  There are many and very fine trees in the grounds about the Castle, and there is a charming garden, now closed against the casual tourist, as it has been leased with the modern house to a tenant who lives here.  In the leafy summer the place must be a dream of beauty.  An avenue of stately trees quite overarching the highway leads from Blarney to St. Anne’s Hill, the site of which, at least, is that of an ideal sanatorium.  We walked thither over hill and dale.  The panorama commanded by the buildings of the sanatorium is one of the widest and finest imaginable, worthy to be compared with the prospect from the Star and Garter at Richmond, or with that from the terrace at St. Germain.

Several handsome lodges or cottages have been built about the extensive grounds.  These are comfortably furnished and leased to people who prefer to bring their households here rather than take up their abode in the hotel, which, however, seems to be a very well kept and comfortable sort of place, with billiard and music rooms, a small theatre, and all kinds of contrivances for making the country almost as tedious as the town.  The establishment is directed now by a German resident physician, but belongs to an Irish gentleman, Mr. Barter, who lives here himself, and here manages what I am told is one of the finest dairy farms and dairies in Ireland.  Our return trip to Cork on the “light railway,” with a warm red sunset lighting up the river Lea, and throwing its glamour over the varied and picturesque scenery through which we ran, was not the least delightful part of a very delightful excursion.