LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Photogravures made by A.W.  Elson & Co.

Peep Hole, blarney castle
in the Dargle, co.  Wicklow
Muckross abbey, Killarney
Brandy island, Glengarriff
Sugar loaf mountain, Glengarriff
river Erne, Belleek
white rocks, Portrush
Powerscourt Waterfall, co.  Wicklow
Honeycomb, giant’s causeway
gray man’s path, fair head
Colleen Bawn caves, Killarney
Ruins on Scattery island
valley of Glendalough and Ruins of the seven
  churches
ancient cross, Glendalough
round tower, Antrim
giant’s head and Dunluce castle, co.  Antrim
rock Cashel, Ruins of old cathedral, king Cormac’s
  chapel and round tower
Dunluce castle
Mellifont abbey, co.  Louth
holy cross abbey, co.  Tipperary
Donegal castle
Tullymore park, co.  Down
Thomond bridge, Limerick
salmon Fishery, Galway
O’CONNELL’S statue, Dublin

IRELAND.

I.

Visible and invisible.

Here is an image by which you may call up and remember the natural form and appearance of Ireland: 

Think of the sea gradually rising around her coasts, until the waters, deepened everywhere by a hundred fathoms, close in upon the land.  Of all Ireland there will now remain visible above the waves only two great armies of islands, facing each other obliquely across a channel of open sea.  These two armies of islands will lie in ordered ranks, their lines stretching from northeast to southwest; they will be equal in size, each two hundred miles along the front, and seventy miles from front to rear.  And the open sea between, which divides the two armies, will measure seventy miles across.

Not an island of these two armies, as they lie thus obliquely facing each other, will rise as high as three thousand feet; only the captains among them will exceed a thousand; nor will there be great variety in their forms.  All the islands, whether north or south, will have gently rounded backs, clothed in pastures nearly to the crest, with garments of purple heather lying under the sky upon their ridges.  Yet for all this roundness of outline there will be, towards the Atlantic end of either army, a growing sternness of aspect, a more sombre ruggedness in the outline of the hills, with cliffs and steep ravines setting their brows frowning against the deep.