landscape, masses crop out of a rich red granite, finer in colour than any we had previously seen.  In that neighbourhood the wastes of Donegal take on an aspect which recalls, though upon quite a different key in colour, the inimitable beauty of those treeless North-western highlands of Scotland, upon which Nature has lavished all the wealth of her palette.  Vast spaces of brown and red and gold shimmer away under the softly luminous mountain atmosphere to the dark blues and purples of the hills.  We passed Glen Veagh again, but from quite a different point of view, which gave us a beautiful picture of Lough Veagh in its length, and of the smiling pastoral landscape upon its further shore.

As we drew near the eastern boundary of Donegal, hedges and civilised agriculture reappeared.  With these we came upon mud cottages, such as I had not seen in Donegal, being the huts provided for their labourers by the tenant-farmers, whose comfortable stone-houses and out-buildings stood well back under the long ranges of the hills.

We passed through much striking scenery, perhaps the finest point being a magnificent Gap in the hills, guarded and defined by three colossal headlands, one of them a vast long rampart, the other two gigantic counterscarps.  The immediate approach to Letterkenny, too, from the west is charming, passing in full view of the extensive and beautiful park and the large mansion of Colonel Stewart of the Guards, and skirting the well-kept estate of Mr. Boyd, the owner of the ivy-clad cottages which so took my fancy the other day.

In the Ulster settlement under King James I. a patent for Letterkenny was issued to one of the Crawfords.  Then, as the records tell us, “Sir George Marburie dwelt there, and there were forty houses all inhabited by British tenants.  A great market town, and standeth well for the King’s service.”

Again we found a fair going on—­this time attended by swarms of peddlers vending old clothes and all sorts of small wares, bread-cartmen, and tea-vendors.  These latter aver that it is easier to sell tea in the “congested” districts at 4s. 6d. than at 2s. 6d.  The people have no test of its quality but its price!

The town was gay with soldiers and police—­whose advent had created such a demand for bread and meat, a man told us, that all the butchers and bakers in Letterkenny and Dunfanaghy were at their wits’ ends to meet it.  “But they don’t complain of that!” We reached Newtown-Stewart by railway after dark.  As we passed Sion the mills were all lighted up, giving it the look of an English or New England town.  A New England snow-storm, too, awaited us at our journey’s end; and, after a wild drive of several miles through the whirling white mists, it was a delectable thing to find ourselves welcomed in a hall full of light and warmth and flowers by merry children and lively dogs, the guard of honour of the most gracious and charming of hostesses.