THE
VOL . VII .
OCTOBER, 1885 .
No .
55 .
TWO DAYS AT KILLARNEY. ARLY in July, a party of seven set out from a comfortable farmhouse in county Tipperary ciz route for the Irish lakes ; one and all determined to squeeze a maximum amount of enjoyment out of the two days at their disposal . The journey, like most railway journeys in the Emerald Isle, was somewhat tedious, chiefly owing to the strong partiality for social chat which characterizes the Irish people in general, and apparently officials of the iron road in particular, trains being not unfrequenily detained for ten minutes or so to enable the engine driver to get his dinner, or the guard and station master to exchange views on the topics of the hour . On our arrival, we are met by the hotel porter, and, consequently, attended to with promptitude and civility, virtues from which the railway branch of the Irish porter tribe is conspicuously free . This is not merely the view of a partial Briton, we heard the statement corroborated in Dublin by a patriotic young Irishwoman, a resident for some years in England, who expressed a wish to be back home where there was some civility, "for sure there was none here at all, dearly as she loved her native counthry ." Early the following morning we secure a waggonette with a typical paddy driver attached, and start for Muckross abbey, a picturesque old ruin, situated in grounds " richly carpeted with rank and luxuriant vegetation," as the guide book grandiloquently puts it, belonging to the Herberts, whose family seat is close to the ruins . " Nowhere else." the volume just referred to continues, " is there such an assemblage of magnificent features : noble mountains, glittering lakes, stately trees, verdant shrubberies, lovely meadows, venerable ruins, beauteous flowers, countless birds, and all over-arched (curiously enough) by a sky of azure ." Within the walls of the ruin stands an ancient yew tree, planted by the monks in the fourteenth century, and remarkable for its trunk, which grows quite straight to the uncommon altitude of eighteen feet .
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