Lough Leane has upwards of thirty isles, large and small, and as the boat is rowed past Glena shore you see them in all their varied form and colour, from Ross to tiny Mouse Island. It is a fair sight. There is a little bay at the foot of the Toomies where you can land to reach O’Sullivan’s Cascade, one of the greatest of the Killarney waterfalls, not only from its size, but from the peculiar formation of the bed down which it dashes. It really consists of three falls. “The uppermost, passing over a bridge of rocks, falls about 20 feet perpendicularly into a natural basin; then, bursting between two hanging rocks, the torrent hastens down a second precipice into a second receptacle, from which it rolls over into the lowest chamber of the fall. It is about 70 feet high. The roar of the descending water can be heard from afar, and is almost deafening when near. Beneath a projecting rock overhanging the lowest basin is a grotto, with a seat rudely cut in the rock. From this little grotto the view of the cascade is peculiarly beautiful. It appears a continued flight of three foamy stories. The recess is overshadowed by an arch of foliage so thick as to interrupt the admission of light.”
The forest about Toomies is still the haunt of the old red deer of Ireland, and a grand stag hunt is occasionally organized, the cries of the hounds, the shouting of the hunters, the firing of the signalling cannon, combining to awake the mountain echoes for many miles around. It is a cruel sport, though the stag is now, as a rule, saved from death. Yet its gallant attempts to save itself, its struggles to get free from the cordon of enemies around, its agonies of terror as, bounding for refuge to the heights, it is confronted by shouting men, and turned to confront the savage pack, are cruel enough. It leaps from rock to rock and chasm to chasm with sobbing breath and big tears, and plunges into the lake in desperation, to be met by the boats watching for it. Of late years it is set free, but it is not sentimentality to imagine that the grim experience it has passed through will render the life given to it a thing of terror, haunted by the bay of the hounds and the shouts of the hunters.
MOUNTAIN HOMES OF THE KILLARNEY DISTRICT.
CHAPTER VI
THE KILLARNEY FOLK
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.