Next morning, with new car, horse, and driver, we put off for Leenane, twenty-seven miles away. We drove along the banks of Lough Mask, with its groups of small, wooded islands, and left it to take the road along Lough Nafooey, a very picturesque drive. After some hours of driving, we put up at McKeown's Hotel in Leenane. "Mac" is a Pooh-Bah, a tall, strapping young Irishman, a "six-foot-twoer," with an intermittent laugh that takes most of the sting out of his hotel bills, and he holds the complimentary title of "The Major." He runs an up-to-date hotel, is postmaster, owns a store, has all the mail-posting contracts, rents salmon and trout rivers and lakes, ships salmon to London, and owns ten thousand acres of shooting-land stocked with grouse, hares, snipe, duck, and cock, which he lets to visitors, as well as seal shooting on the bay. He also owns a sheep mountain, from which he serves mutton to his guests in all the ways that mankind has ever known since sheep were first slaughtered for food. We had on succeeding days, as part of the menu, roast mutton (hot and cold), stewed lamb, boiled leg, roast saddle, minced lamb, mutton cutlets, broiled kidneys, lamb chops, Irish stew, suet-pudding, sweetbreads, French chops, sheep's-head, and mutton broth. We fancied we could detect wool growing on the palms of our hands when we left the hotel, and could have forgiven "Mac" if we could only have found it starting on the tops of our heads instead. At another hotel in a fishing centre we had an aquarium style of living, which in time became monotonous: they served up in the course of time for our delectation, salmon boiled and salmon broiled, cold salmon, salmon steak, salmon croquettes, salmon cutlets, and stewed salmon, intersticed with white trout, black trout, yellow trout, brown trout, sea trout, speckled trout, and gillaroo. But at Recess they combined such things with chops, duck, green pease, lobster, and Irish sole right out of the nearby sea. All hail, Recess! And long life to Polly, the peach-cheeked waitress who served us so nimbly!

Next morning we crossed Killary Bay in a boat, and while doing so we noticed that the captain held his leg in a very constrained position. We asked him if it was stiff, or if he was troubled with rheumatism. "No; to tell your honor the truth, there's a hole in the boat, an' I'm jist kapin' me heel in it to save her from sinkin'."

After landing we drove to Delphi to see its lake and woods; then on to Lough Dhu, a long sheet of water from the banks of which the mountains rise to a height of twenty-five hundred feet. Delphi is one of the loveliest spots in Connemara, but we can hardly go as far as the enthusiastic Englishman who wrote: "It may be safely said that if Connemara contained no other beauty, Delphi alone would be worth the journey from London, for the sake of the mountain scenery." Delphi House formerly belonged to the Marquis of Sligo, and at one time he lived there. We returned by driving round the head of the bay, with a horse that would have retarded a funeral procession. Within a mile of the hotel there is a double echo, which we tested by loud whistling on our fingers. After crossing the bay, the echo came back to us with great strength, striking our side of the mountain again and thus making a second echo.

WATER-FALL IN THE MARQUIS OF SLIGO'S DEMESNE, WESTPORT, COUNTY MAYO

On the morning before we left, I lay in bed half asleep, and, as the bedrooms in the west of Ireland rarely have any locks on their doors, our confidential "boots" stole quietly into the room and, looking at me, soliloquized in a tender tone, suggestive of a tip if I should hear him: "Sure, his honor is slapin' loike a baby, an' 'twould be nothin' short of a crime to wake him up this wet mornin'; I haven't the heart to do it." And he walked out of the room with his eye on the future.

The following day we "took in" the Killaries, as they are called. This is a long arm of the sea, surrounded by high, bold mountains, clothed with very green verdure to their tops. It is a wonderful fiord, which has scarcely any parallel in the British Isles and much resembles the coast scenery in Norway. Capacious and fit for the largest ships, it runs inland to the very heart of the mountains for a distance of some nine miles. The mountain scenery on the north of the fiord is incomparably the finest, the enormous walls of Mweelrea, the "Giant of the West," and Bengorm rising abruptly to the height of two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight feet and two thousand three hundred and three feet, while the excessive stillness of the land-locked water, in which the shadows of the hills are clearly reflected, makes it difficult for one to believe that it is the actual ocean which he beholds.

That night, after a drive of twelve miles, we reached Casson's Hotel in Letterfrack, where we asked for a fire in the dining-room, as it was cold when we arrived. The maid brought a burning scuttle of peat, the smoke from which did not subside during the entire dinner, but it looked comfortable, to see each other through it, reminding us of cheerful fires and warm nooks at home; the comparison could go no farther, however. We asked the maid for a wine-list, in order that we might try to overcome the effect of the smoke, and she responded, with great naÏvetÉ, that she had no wine-list, but would bring us a sample from every bin in the cellar. In a few minutes, sure enough, she bounced into the room with her arms full of bottles, saying: "Take yer ch'ice, gintlemen; there's nothin' foiner in all Connemara!" We took her at her word; she had not deceived us—the bottle we selected was a good claret.

KYLEMORE CASTLE AND PRIVATE CHAPEL, COUNTY GALWAY

Next morning the landlady furnished us with the best animal we had on the trip. She was a stout, bay mare, and when her spirits had rallied after leaving a young colt of hers behind, she reeled off the miles like a machine. Our object in visiting this part of the country was to see Mitchell Henry's famous castle, Kylemore, and the Twelve Pins, about which we had been hearing all our lives without ever having had an opportunity to visit them until now.

Mr. Henry was a linen merchant, with houses in Belfast and Manchester; he made a fortune, purchased fourteen thousand acres of land in Connemara to give himself a political foothold, and in consequence became M. P. for Galway, which position he retained for six years. About forty years ago he began the construction of Kylemore, selecting as a site a valley between very high mountains, with a lake and river in front of the spot where his castle would stand. He collected rare trees and planted the mountain-sides with them, as well as the valley round his buildings. In addition to the castle, he erected fine stables, a private chapel, sheltered gardens, and conservatories, and preserved the salmon and trout in the lake and river. The moist heat from the Gulf Stream was his main ally, and nowhere else in the world can more bursting vigor and splendid growth be seen than are exhibited by his trees, shrubs, and flowers; to see them is a veritable treat to those who are interested in such things. In the gardens flourish groups of tropical plants, palms, and rare ferns the year round; they need no protection in this mild climate. His roads have double fuchsia hedges twelve feet high, which, anywhere else than in Connemara, would be worth a fortune. They were in full bloom when we saw them. Mr. Henry is now a very old man and lives in London; and the sad part of it all is that he cannot enjoy the glories of his famous property, and it is for sale. Sic transit gloria mundi!

After visiting the castle, church, gardens, and conservatories, we drove through the extensive, finely wooded demesne, passing vast banks of rhododendrons and hydrangeas in rare bloom, till we reached the county road and caught our first glimpse of the Twelve Pins, or Bens, as they are sometimes called. They were a disappointment; we had heard too much about them. The Twelve Pins is a group of high mountains having but little verdure; the highest, Benbaun, is two thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. The remarkable feature about them is that they are practically one long mountain with twelve peaks rising from it at regular intervals. Excepting this startling effect, they do not compare with Muckish, Dooish, or Errigal, the "peerless cone" of Donegal.

DEVIL'S MOTHER MOUNTAIN, AASLEAGH FALLS, AND SALMON-LEAP ON ERRIFF RIVER, COUNTY GALWAY

The bay mare carried us in gallant style past the long, romantic-looking Lough Inagh down to Recess, where we put up at the best hotel we had found since we started.