From This Point It Was Four Miles, Irish Miles,
Through The Gap To The Lake To The Point Where We Took The Boat.
This
was one circumstance of which we were not aware when we started; it was
therefore a surprize.
I am sorry to say that this gap was a
disappointment to me. It was a difficult path among bare mountains, but
nothing startling or uncommon.
What was uncommon was the relays of indefatigable women that lay in wait
for us at every turn. Goats' milk and poteen, photographs, knitted
socks, carved knick-nacks in bog oak; everything is offered for sale;
denial will not be taken. You pass one detachment to come upon another
lurking in ambush at a corner. There are men with small cannons who will
wake the echoes for a consideration; there are men with key bugles who
will wake the echoes more musically for a consideration; there is the
blind fiddler of the gap who fiddles away in hopes of intercepting some
stray pennies from the shower. One impudent woman followed us for quite
a way to sell us her photograph, as the photograph of Eily O'Connor,
murdered here by her lover many years ago - murdered not at the gap but
in the lake. There was a large party of us and these followers, horse,
foot and artillery, I may say were a persistent nuisance all the way.
The ponies, crowds of them, followed us to the entrance of the Gap,
where they disappeared, but the women and girls never faltered for the
five miles. The reiterated and re-reiterated offer of goat's milk and
poteen became exasperating; the bodyguard of these pertinacious women
that could not be shaken off was most annoying. The tourists are to the
inhabitants of Killarney what a wreck used to be to the coast people of
Cornwall, a God-send.
One does feel inclined to lose all patience as they run the gauntlet
here, and then one looks around at the miserable cabins built of loose
stones, at the thatch held on by ropes weighted with stones, the same as
are to be seen in Achil Island, among the Donegal hills, or the long
glens of Leitrim, notices the patches of pale, sickly, stunted oats, the
little corners of pinched potatoes - a girl passed us with a tin dish of
potatoes for the dinner, they were little bigger than marbles - the
little rickles of turf that the constant rain is spoiling, and one sees
that as there is really no industry in the place, of loom or factory,
that want and encouragement have combined to make them come down like
the wolf on the fold to the attack of tourists. It spoiled the view, it
destroyed any pleasure the scenery might have afforded, and yet under
the circumstances it was natural enough on their part. "We depend on the
tourists, this is our harvest," the carmen explained to us. From the
hotel keeper to the beggar all depend on the tourist season.
After all it was something to have passed through between the
Macgillicuddy's Reeks and the purple mountain; something to see water
like spun silver flinging itself from the mountain top in leaps to the
valley below, to struggle up and up to the highest point of the gap and
look back at the serpentine road winding in and out beside small still
lakes through the valley far below. Of course we look into the Black
Lough where St. Patrick imprisoned the last snake. Of course we had
pointed out to us the top of Mangerton, and were told of the devil's
punch bowl up there. Down through the Black Valley we came to the point
where the boats waited for us, leaving the black rocks, the bare
mountains, the poor little patches of tillage, the miserable huts and
the multitudinous vendors of goat's milk and poteen behind. To our
surprise the way to the boats was barred by a gate, and at the gate
stood a man of Mr. Herbert's to receive a shilling for each passenger
before they could pass to the boats. "He makes a good thing out of it,"
remarked the boatmen. I do not know how many more fees are to be paid
for a look about the lakes of Killarney, but this gate, Torc Cascade and
Muckross Abbey cost each tourist two shillings and sixpence to look at
them.
The upper lake is beautiful, fenced around by mountains of every size
and variety of appearance. Of course they are the same mountains you
have been seeing all day, but seen from a different standpoint. The
Eagle's Nest towers up like an attenuated pyramid, partly clothed with
trees, and is grand enough and high enough for the eagles to build on
its summit, which they do. Here were men stationed to wake the echoes
with the bugle. As our boat swept round, recognizing that we had not
employed them, they ceased the strain until we passed, but the echoes
followed us and insisted on being heard.
There are many, many spots on the Upper Ottawa as fair and as romantic
as the Lakes of Killarney, and they are very lovely. The trees on the
islands have a variety that do not grow in our Canada, principally the
glossy-leaved arbutus. From the upper lake we slid down a baby rapid
under an old bridge - built by the Danes of course, the arch formed as
the arches of the castles in the west - into the middle lake.
The day had been one of dim showers, but in the middle lake the sun
streamed out and touched the peak of the purple mountain and all the
mountain sides and woody islands with splendor, that streamed down in
golden shafts along the rain that was falling on some, and chased for a
moment the shadows that lay on others. We slid down a fainter rapid
under another bridge into the last and largest lake. On every lake there
are buildings of glory and beauty to be seen nestling on the banks among
the trees, or towering on the heights, owned by the wealthy and titled
people that own the land round the lakes.
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