Golden Days In Many Lands

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 22, 27 May 1908, Page 18

Golden Days In Many Lands

BEING STRAY NOTES OF FIVE YEARS OF TRAVEL.

By

WINIFRED H. LEYS, AUCKLAND.

KILLARNEY—THE TOWN AND SURROUNDING LAKES.

THERE lives a man in the very heart of the village* of Killarney who has a. three-storied house*, but I guarantee* you'll search a long hour before you line! him. Ami why? Because his t h ree-st oried house* exists merely in his humorous imagination. I had wandered from the 1 dirty street into his dirtier hovel, with its mud floor and bunks nailed to the* walls of its <>ne* room, and I turned to the man in protesting pity at his iniserable* abode. "But. Miss.’’ he* said, "and what may be* the* matter with me* house*? Isn't it t hree "lories high ? What more could a man wish for?” "Three* stories.” I exclaimed, "why. it's only a one-roomed hovel.’’ "Yem see. Miss, it's this way.” he explained, "there's the hole for the* pigs down there*.” pointing to a scooped out cavity in the* mud floor, "ami the* room we* live* in. ami the* roost for the* fow Is above* our heads; indeed. but it's three stories right enough.’’ Ami so it was ami all three inhabited. XowlkTc does the* world oiler more pitiable contrasts than surround you in that little* town of Killarney ami its lake* land. Indeed. there is no ne*e*el to go emt to the lakes for contrast" you ran wander from the* really line Roman Catholic cathedral into the* mml ely st reeds, in which the* dirty weemen. almost hidden in big drabby sha W Is. cremeh along. scarcely earing tee avoid the rum inating cows or the* pigs that grunt fron door tee door; from the palatial resi ele*me* of the* Bishop, or even yemr OW I lu xurieeii" modern hotel, yem may deseem intee one eef t hese I II ree-"t e tried hovels and t he dist ilift ion bet w cell rich and pool is as glaring ami hea rt rending as that io be* found in any city of Eastern civi lisa t ion. Apparently tee Be* surrounded b\ mi tlire'> sweetest gifts does met necesa-I i i \ breed a love eef flea 111 i Hess ; \ <*t can We blame* them. for t hey are* poor. t he*se Killarney peasant", peeeer ami hearth*"" ami di"COllt e*||t e*d. All! blit there* I me gain-a\ing the* fact that the* life* o the* Iri-h peasant is. Beyond <eiir imagi nation. harel ami Exact h what it is that affords a livelihood te uiaux families is a problem that tin touri"t cannot pretend tee solve; rspeci ally is thi" trm* with n*gard tee the peasants living on the uncultivated lam

m the* vicinity of Killarney. The* hills that slope* flow n tee the* lakes are* heavfiy wooded. but the* valleys are*, for the* most part, stony and useless, ami little* or nothing is to be* seen eef actual farming. Yet I hailed Counts' Kerry with glee, for. though small in extent, it is really much more* varied in its attractiveness than the* great bulk eef Ireland. There erne* escapes from that moneeteeny eef ei£lless pasture* land, which, had struck me as very wearisome on the* journey from Dublin to Killarney. when feer hours the* only variation in the* surrounding sea eef emerald was when we* passed through a stony waste*, eer across a dreary tract of bog. But in County Kerry there are* hills ami vallevs; some are* stonv ami

are* fit home feer naught save* the* herds eef goats that wander over them, others are* capable* eef producing line? creeps eef wheat, barley. and potatoes; while* the hills that surround the lakes of Killarney are* remarkable* feer the* great variety in the* shades eef their vegetation; the light green eef the* Arbutus, mingling with the* elark green eef the* mountain bracken, ami even darker yew trees, and all contrasting with the* purple* eef the heather. Tee the* peasant. the* mountain bracken is the* most useful of all plants, for lie* uses it to thatch his cottage. to cover the* floor eef his one dwelling-room. to manure* his potatee patch —if he* owns eem* —ami even tee feed his live stock when the* season presses hard.

Among the wooded mountains near Killarney a few red deer still linger; the streams, too, are alive with goodsizeel trout; both, however, are “forbidden fruit” to the peasant. Land that is regularly farmed and that produces crops of wheat and barley is, in reality, a rarity; and in many of the rocky, profitless wastes of Ireland there are families whose earnings are so meagre that they cannot afford to buy even the much-loved potato. There are families, 1 am told, for whom Indian corn is the staple food Indian corn for breakfast and for tea; Indian corn from Sunday to Sunday, from month to month, and sometimes from year to year. By these people bacon is only tasted on feast days, and then very sparingly. Surely this is poverty, and. though it be felt by the dwellers of the open countryside, it is as great and as crushing as anything to be experienced in the cities. So. if the village of Killarney is filthy, and its inhabitants are squalid and miserable, can we be surprised that it is so. But who goes to Killarney to see the town? Xo one. If we cannot avoid the squalor of that village let us endeavour. for a while, to forget it; and to do this we need not go so very far away. Though from Killarney one may ascend the highest mountain in Ireland — Mt. Carrantual — the achievement of 3414 ft. is, after all, nothing very remarkable. None the less, the groups of wooded hills that surround the lakes of Killarney lend to the scenery much of the charm that it possesses. For me it was in tin* jaunting-car drives to and fro in the wooded glens, over mossy roads and surrounded by peeping wild flowers, with her and there a glimpse of tin* lakes themselves, or of an ivy-cov-ered ruin, that my heart found that element of peaceful beauty and of comfort of which the poets have sung. All three lakes, Upper Lake, Middle, or Muckross Lake, and Lower Lake, or Lough Leant*, are thickly studded with islands, which, as you may well imagine, form much of the charm and beauty of the whole scene. That arm of the Upper Lake which lies beneath the shade of the Purple Mountain wins the hearts of all who visit it; and there are few who. having drifted down between the waterlily-covered banks of Long Range, will ever forget the wonderful mountain that rises sheer out of the water to the height of 2000 ft., on the summit of which the golden eagles make their home. Having called up these memories, my thoughts run riot among the many lovely bays and inlets that fringe the three famous lakes. How soon all thoughts of misery and squalor are completely brushed awa v w hen we wander among the graves that surround the crumbling, ivv-clad Muckross Abbev; or meditate

upon the pathetic love story of the Colleen Bawn amid the scenes where that drama was enacted; or pause to watch the dancing waters of the Lower and the Middle Lakes meet in a whirl of tossing rapids under the old Weir Bridge. Of the islands. Innisfallen. covered as it is with magnificent yew trees, is far and away the loveliest. Under the shade of these noble trees there still stand the ruined remains of the most ancient abbey in all Ireland—that founded in the 6th century by Saint Finian, who was by birth the son of a king, bv choice a monk, and by misfortune a leper. For several centuries after its foundation the abbey of Innisfallen was the most famous seat of learning in Ireland, perhaps in all the Western world.

Musing under the shade of the ancient yew trees one felt the surrounding peacefulness that must have drawn the leper monk to Innisfallen in the far away 6th century days. •But the wood, all close and clenching, Bough in bough and root in root. — No more sky (for over branching) At your head than at your feet.— Oh. the wood drew me within it. by a glamour past dispute.” So we crossed again to land, and drove through the bewitching woodland to .Muckross Abbey. The woods are private property, but the Killarney landlords allow tourists to drive through, and so to visit the various old ruins that are hidden away there, of which Muckross Abbey is the largest and most interesting. The splendid old ivy-clad ruin stands in a peaceful churchyard. When one remembers the natural spirit of romance that lies deep down in the Irish nature one is not surprised that the memory still lingers, and the story is still told of the stranger who. nearly a century ago. came to Muckross Abbey from no one knows where, and who. after living peaceably for six years within shelter of the deserted cloisters, vanished as mysteriously as he had come; and how. several years later, a ladv of evident good birth amd breeding appeared in Killarney. who. after making the most careful inquiries into the life of the former occupant of the cloisters, and having spent many tearful hours in his then vacant retreat, sorrowfully went her wav. leaving behind her a double invsterv. The poetic side of the Irishman loves to dwell on such a tale as this, and the mysterious stranger could have found no more thoroughly romantic spot than the crumbling Muckross Abbey <n which to spend what may possible have been a time of penance. On the shores of Lough Lea no. or Lower Lake, stands all that is left of Boss Castle, once (he stronghold of that very fiery tribe, the O'Donoghues. who. not only claimed the lordship of the sur i minding country, but also vaunted a tradition that an ancestor of the tribe was the means of adding to the beauties

of Killarney the lower lake, known today as Lough Leane. The story runs that, in those prehistoric days, in the place where now ripples the expanse of silvery water, there was an equally beautiful city, and within the city an enchanted well. Since the foundation of the city it had been common knowledge among the inhabitants that if the mouth of the well should be left uncovered for a single night then the water would gush forth with unusual abundance and Hood the land. One evening the young and reckless ruler of the city—O'Donoghue by name—having dined a little too well, was attacked with a spirit of revelry and bravado, and himself removed the cover of the well. By the dawn of the following day the Prince.

with the city and all its inhabitants, lay fathoms deep beneath a triumphant and smiling lake. If you should feel, as 1 do, that we owe a debt of thanks to the vainglorious Prince, you must hasten to the lake shore at sunrise some morning during the month of May, for then it is that the guilty chieftain rises from the domain he still rules beneath the lake and comes, riding on a snowwhite horse, to land. The tradition, by the way. does not mention whether the evening on which O’Donoghue let the

well overflow wa" that following the day when, for the entertainment of the Devil. In filled the lake on the summit of Mt. Mangerton with whisky. fhe two events M*em to me t<» have a natural sequence. hut ( fI )oiioglilie’s chroniclers are silent on this point. We limy go further afield to tin* (lap of Dunhie amllindth.it Killarney has also a grander type of scenery. The long trowning ravine that lies between th ■ .JacGillycuddy Keeks, the highest mountain of which is .Mt. ( arrantual (341-111). and the Tomies and Purple Mountains (273‘dftl. is traversed by a swift little river on the brink of which the bridle track is formed. It is all very wild ami verv rugged: the live Likes that lie hidden away in the wider parts of the (lap are sombre and a wee bit desolate in appearance; while the narrow stretch when* the mountains press together and nearlv squeeze the w ihl little river from its rocky bed must. I think, have been a favourite haunt of O'Donoghue, tor in all Ireland no more perfect surroundings could be found as the setting for some deed of audacity. We leave the melancholy grandeur of Diniloe ami go back to t he woode I chores of Ixillarney. where a little lesam awaits ii" a mute reproach to the English hearts so apt to accuse the Irish of unreasonable disloyally. With its sui - rounding garden carefully tended we tin I a little cottage guarded with care and shown with pride; every piece of its furniture almost lovingly kept in the uoMtion it held one da v in the year IS It).

And why? Because tin* late Queen Victoria. on her only visit to Ixillarney, rested here on that day. Next Week: AN ORIENT S.S. CO.’S TRIP TO THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS.