The people who dwell on the shores of these lovely lakes are a handsome race, tall and finely formed, with clear-cut features and dark and most expressive eyes, often of the Irish grey or deep violet, with long black lashes. Pencilled eyebrows and abundance of dark-brown hair usually accompany these, and that clear complexion which the moist western breezes confer. They love music and dancing, the “boys and girls,” who, meeting on a roadside, only require a merry tune to “foot it away” and forget their cares.

But with all their lightheartedness their standard of duty is very high, and family ties are sacred. Seldom, if ever, is infidelity known among the married, and a certain honour is given to the head of the poorest household. Husband and wife each has a distinct place, which neither would dream of usurping, the husband having the chief, of course. In one case, however, and that a very important one to an Irishman, right of precedence is universally granted to the wife. This is when it happens that she is by birth of a superior tribe to her husband. “I am a MacCarthy; my husband is only a so-and-so,” she will say proudly.

There are many “shealings” around and on the sides of the mountains, where the “mountainy men,” as they are called, cultivate patches of land with a success due to their patient industry. They have hens, a few goats, and perhaps some lean mountain sheep, and all these are liable to visitations from the eagles when rearing their young. Often, too, they have one or two cows of the Kerry breed, which find sweet pickings among the rocks, and give more milk on the scant herbage than the sleek and well-favoured kine of richer counties. This breed is small, with long horns and wild, handsome heads.

Simple-hearted, generous and faithful are these men and women, with a dignified courtesy of manner which tells of the Eastern strain in their blood. Their courtesy and good manners are, indeed, very charming. For instance, you may have been out all day with a man, and when you reach his home he will step in first, and, turning, offer you his hand and bid you welcome, as though it were the first time he had met you that day. He welcomes you, and then you will be placed in the seat of honour, and refreshments brought you, the refusal of which would be an insult.

The love of classical learning among the peasantry was great. It continues still, though the classics are not cultivated in this practical age as in the days when they were taught by travelling scholars at the hedge schools. All the old writers on Killarney mention their wonder at meeting poorly-clad men and boys able to converse fluently in Latin, and studying the best Latin, and even Greek, authors. The power of reading Homer in the original was greatly coveted, and often attained. The magic of their surroundings may have had much to do with kindling the peasant’s imagination to passionate interest in a dead language.

The first distinct mention of the sea-coast adjoining Killarney occurs in the works of Ptolemy, who wrote in the second century. He speaks of the river of Kenmare under the title of Iernus, while again it is called Fluctus Desmonda, or the River of Desmond. At this Iernus of Ptolemy is placed by ancient authors the landing of several Milesian colonists, and though Irish history before the Christian era is chiefly traditional, there seems some foundation for this.

If we believe the bards and seers, the Milesian immigration was the fifth which came to colonize Hibernia out of the overflowing tribes of Asia. Of the fourth, the Tuatha de Danans, they tell a curious tale. These colonizers are depicted as accomplished sooth-sayers and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell storms, cure diseases, work in metals, foretell future events, and, by their supernatural powers as well as by virtue of the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, they subdued the Firbolgs, who had preceded them, and exercised sovereignty, till they in turn were displaced by the Gaelic or fifth immigration.

Sometimes these called themselves Gael, from an ancestor; sometimes Milesians, from Milesius, projector of the immigration; sometimes Scota, from his wife. They came from Spain, and all their magical arts did not save the Tuatha from defeat. “In vain they surrounded themselves and their coveted island with magic-made tempest and terrors; in vain they reduced it in size so as to be almost invisible from sea. Amergin, one of the sons of Milesius, was a Druid skilled in all the arts of the East, and, led by him, his brothers countermined the magicians and beat them with their own weapons.”

Among the mountains of South Kerry the peasants point out a stone where Queen Scota, daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, and wife of Milesius of Spain, is believed to lie buried. She was killed in battle three days after landing with her sons on this coast. Upon the flat of the stone is an Ogham inscription, which reads, “Leacht Scoihin” (“The grave mound of Scota”). Ogham experts think this inscription a forgery, but the old tradition makes it at least probable that within sound of the thunder of the Atlantic, far from her own people, lies the daughter of the Pharaohs.

From an antiquarian point of view Kerry is one of the most interesting places in the British Isles, and very rich in relics of the past. An archÆological society has been formed, which is endeavouring to rescue the relics and monuments from neglect and decay. Killarney has been found a singularly promising field to explore, though much has perished.

The Celtic nature is curiously complex, and those who do not themselves possess it find it hard to understand. It has one quality in which no other race has ever equalled it, and that is a marvellous power of absorbing alien nationalities to itself, so that, while conquered, it yet conquers. It is a matter of current knowledge that the English became more Irish than the Irish themselves. They intermarried with the families of native chiefs, gave their children to be nursed by Irish foster-mothers, spoke the Irish tongue, espoused the Irish interests. Had this power of amalgamation been encouraged, and not sternly repressed by the English Government, there was a period when it might have changed completely the destiny of Ireland; but it was not to be.

There is an interesting poem by an Irishman, “The Geraldines,” from which I quote one verse: