I can not say more than
that. The banks are so richly green, the hills so fertile up to their
round tops, checked off by green hedges into fields of all shapes and
sizes; the trees lift up their proud heads and fling out their great
arms as if laden with blessing; the primroses, like baby moons, more in
number than the stars of heaven, glow under every hedge and gem every
bank, so that though the Lake Allumette is as lovely as Lough Erne, yet
the banks that sit round Lough Erne are more lovely by far than the
borders of Lake Allumette. They are as fair as any spot under heaven in
their brightness of green.
Sailing up the lake or down, I do not know which, we passed the ruins of
Portora old castle; ruined towers and battered walls, roofless and
lonely. Kind is the ivy green to the old remnants of by-gone power or
monuments of by-gone oppression, happing up the cold stones, and draping
gracefully the bare ruins.
The Island of Devenish, or of the ox, is famed for the good quality of
its grass. Here we saw the ruins of an abbey. It has been a very large
building, said to have been built as far back as 563.
