September 16. To Cove by water, from Mr. Trent's quay. The view of Lota is charming; a fine rising lawn from the water, with n.o.ble spreading woods reaching on each side; the house a very pleasing front, with lawn shooting into the woods. The river forms a creek between two hills, one Lota, the other opening to another hill of inclosures well wooded. As the boat leaves the sh.o.r.e nothing can be finer than the view behind us; the back woods of Lota, the house and lawn, and the high bold inclosures towards Cork, form the finest sh.o.r.e imaginable, leading to Cork, the city appearing in full view, Dunkettle wooded inclosures, a fine sweep of hill, joining Mr. h.o.a.re's at Factory Hill, whose woods have a beautiful effect. Dunkettle House almost lost in a wood. As we advance, the woods of Lota and Dunkettle unite in one fine ma.s.s. The sheet of water, the rising lawns, the house in the most beautiful situation imaginable, with more woods above it than lawns below it, the west sh.o.r.e of Loch Mahon, a very fine rising hill cut into inclosures but without wood, land-locked on every side with high lands, scattered with inclosures, woods, seats, etc., with every cheerful circ.u.mstance of lively commerce, have altogether a great effect. Advancing to Pa.s.sage the sh.o.r.es are various, and the scenery enlivened by fourscore sail of large ships; the little port of Pa.s.sage at the water's edge, with the hills rising boldly above it. The channel narrows between the great island and the hills of Pa.s.sage. The sh.o.r.es bold, and the ships scattered about them, with the inclosures hanging behind the masts and yards picturesque. Pa.s.sing the straits a new basin of the harbour opens, surrounded with high lands.

Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn. The high sh.o.r.e of the harbour's mouth opens gradually. The whole scene is land-locked. The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin's house, backed with hills, a scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood. The view of Ballybricken changes; it now appears to be unfortunately cut into right lines. Arrived at the ship at Cove; in the evening returned, leaving Mr.

Jefferys and family on board for a voyage to Havre, in their way to Paris.

Dunkettle is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Ireland. It is a hill of some hundred acres broken into a great variety of ground by gentle declivities, with everywhere an undulating outline and the whole varied by a considerable quant.i.ty of wood, which in some places is thick enough to take the appearance of close groves, in others spreads into scattered thickets and a variety of single groups. This hill, or rather cl.u.s.ter of hills, is surrounded on one side by a reach of Cork Harbour, over which it looks in the most advantageous manner; and on the other by an irriguous vale, through which flows the river Glanmire; the opposite sh.o.r.e of that river has every variety that can unite to form pleasing landscapes for the views from Dunkettle grounds; in some places narrow glens, the bottoms of which are quite filled with water, and the steep banks covered with thick woods that spread a deep shade; in others the vale opens to form the site of a pretty cheerful village, overhung by hill and wood: here the sh.o.r.e rises gradually into large inclosures, which spread over the hills, stretching beyond each other; and there the vale melts again into a milder variety of fields. A hill thus situated, and consisting in itself of so much variety of surface, must necessarily command many pleasing views. To enjoy these to the better advantage, Mr.

Trent (than whom no one has a better taste, both to discover and describe the beauties of natural scenes) is making a walk around the whole, which is to bend to the inequalities of the ground, so as to take the princ.i.p.al points in view. The whole is so beautiful, that if I were to make the regular detour, the description might be too minute; but there are some points which gave me so much pleasure that I know not how to avoid recommending to others that travel this way to taste the same satisfaction. From the upper part of the orchard you look down a part of the river, where it opens into a regular basin, one corner stretching up to Cork, lost behind the hill of Lota, the lawn of which breaks on the swelling hills among the woods; the house obscured, and therefore seeming a part of your home scene; the losing the river behind the beautiful projection of Lota is more pleasing than can be expressed. The other reach, leading to the harbour's mouth, is half hidden by the trees, which margin the foot of the hill on which you stand; in front a n.o.ble range of cultivated hills, the inclosures broken by slight spots of wood, and prettily varied with houses, without being so crowded as to take off the rural effect. The scene is not only beautiful in those common circ.u.mstances which form a landscape, but is alive with the cheerfulness of ships and boats perpetually moving. Upon the whole, it is one of the most luxuriant prospects I have anywhere seen. Leaving the orchard, pa.s.s on the brow of a hill which forms the bank of the river of Glanmire, commanding the opposite woods of Lota in all their beauty. Rise to the top of the high hill which joins the deer park, and exhibits a scene equally extensive and beautiful; you look down on a vale which winds almost around at your feet, finishing to the left in Cork river, which here takes the appearance of a lake, bounded by wood and hills, and sunk in the bottom of a vale, in a style which painting cannot imitate; the opposite hills of Lota, wood, and lawn, seem formed as objects for this point of view: at your feet a hill rises out of the vale, with higher ones around it, the margins scattered wood; to the right, towards Riverstown, a vale; the whole backed by cultivated hills to Kallahan's field. Milder scenes follow: a bird's-eye view of a small vale sunk at your feet, through which the river flows; a bridge of several arches unites two parts of a beautiful village, the meadow grounds of which rise gently, a varied surface of wood and lawn, to the hills of Riverstown, the whole surrounded by delicious sweeps of cultivated hills. To the left a wooded glen rising from the vale to the horizon, the scenery sequestered, but pleasing; the oak wood which hangs on the deer-park hills, an addition. Down to the brow of the hill, where it hangs over the river, a picturesque interesting spot. The inclosures of the opposite bank hang beautifully to the eye, and the wooded glen winds up the hill. Returning to the house I was conducted to the hill, where the grounds slope off to the river of Cork, which opens to view in n.o.ble reaches of a magnitude that fills the eye and the imagination; a whole country of a character truly magnificent, and behind the winding vale which leads between a series of hills to Glanmire.

Pictures at Dunkettle.

A St. Michael, etc., the subject confused, by Michael Angelo. A St.

Francis on wood, a large original of Guido. A St. Cecilia, original of Romanelli. An a.s.sumption of the Virgin, by L. Carracci. A Quaker's meeting, of above fifty figures, by Egbert Hemskerk. A sea view and rock piece, by Vernet. A small flagellation, by Sebastian del Piombo. A Madonna and Child, small, by Rubens. The Crucifixion, many figures in miniature, excellent, though the master is unknown. An excellent copy of the famous Danae of t.i.tian, at Monte Cavallo, near Naples, by Cioffi of Naples. Another of the Venus of t.i.tian, at the Tribuna in Florence.

Another of Venus blinding Cupid, by t.i.tian, at the Palazzo Borghese in Rome. Another of great merit of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, by Stirn, a German, lately at Rome.

Another of a Holy Family, from Raphael, of which there are said to be three originals, one at the king's palace in Naples, one in the Palais Royal in Paris, and the third in the collection of Lord Exeter, lately purchased at Rome. A portrait of Sir Patrick Trent, by Sir P. Lely. An excellent portrait of a person unknown, by Dahl.

September 17. To Castlemartyr, the seat of the Earl of Shannon, one of the most distinguished improvers in Ireland; in whom I found the most earnest desire to give me every species of information, with a knowledge and ability which enabled him to do it most effectually. Pa.s.sed through Middleton, a well-built place, which belongs to the n.o.ble lord to whom it gives t.i.tle. Castlemartyr is an old house, but much added to by the present earl; he has built, besides other rooms, a dining one thirty-two feet long by twenty-two broad, and a drawing one, the best rooms I have seen in Ireland, a double cube of twenty-five feet, being fifty long, twenty-five broad, and twenty-five high. The grounds about the house are very well laid out; much wood well grown, considerable lawns, a river made to wind through them in a beautiful manner, an old castle so perfectly covered with ivy as to be a picturesque object. A winding walk leads for a considerable distance along the banks of this river, and presents several pleasing landscapes.

From Rostellan to Lota, the seat of Frederick Rogers, Esq. I had before seen it in the highest perfection from the water going from Dunkettle to Cove, and from the grounds of Dunkettle. Mrs. Rogers was so obliging as to show me the back grounds, which are admirably wooded, and of a fine varied surface.

Got to Cork in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with the most flattering attention. Cork is one of the most populous places I have ever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through the streets, they were so amazingly thronged: on the other days the number is very great. I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town, for there are many ca.n.a.ls in the streets, with quays before the houses.

The best built part is Morrison's Island, which promises well; the old part of the town is very close and dirty. As to its commerce, the following particulars I owe to Robert Gordon, Esq., the surveyor-general:

_Average of Nineteen Years' Export, ending March_ 24, 1773.

Hides, at 1 pounds each 64,000 pounds Bay and woollen yarn 294,000 b.u.t.ter, at 30s. per cwt. from 56s. to 180,000 72s.

Beef, at 20s. a barrel 291,970 Camlets, serges, etc. 40,000 Candles 34,220 Soap 20,000 Tallow 20,000 Herrings, 18 to 35,000l. all their 21,000 own Glue 20 to 25,000 22,000 Pork 64,000 Wool to England 14,000 Small exports, Gottenburg herrings, 35,000 horns, hoofs, etc., feather-beds, pallia.s.ses, feathers, etc.

1,100,190

Average prices of the nineteen years on the custom books. All exports on those books are rated at the value of the reign of Charles II.; but the imports have always 10 per cent. on the sworn price added to them.

Seventy to eighty sail of ships belong to Cork. Average of ships that entered that port in those nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two per annum. The number of people at Cork mustered by the clergy by hearth-money, and by the number of houses, payments to minister, average of the three, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the 1st of September, after that twenty thousand increased. There are seven hundred coopers in the town. Barrels all of oak or beech, all from America: the latter for herrings, now from Gottenburg and Norway. The excise of Cork now no more than in Charles the Second's reign. Ridiculous!

Cork old duties, in 1751, 62,000 pounds produced Now the same 140,000

Bullocks, 16,000 head, 32,000 barrels; 41,000 hogs, 20,000 barrels.

b.u.t.ter, 22,000 firkins of half a hundredweight each, both increase this year, the whole being

240,000 firkins of b.u.t.ter, 120,000 barrels of beef.

Export of woollen yarn from Cork, 300,000 pounds a year in the Irish market. No wool smuggled, or at least very little. The wool comes to Cork, etc., and is delivered out to combers, who make it into b.a.l.l.s.

These b.a.l.l.s are bought up by the French agents at a vast price, and exported; but even this does not amount to 40,000 pounds a year.

Prices.

Beef, 21s. per cwt., never so high by 2s. 6d.; pork, 30s., never higher than 18s. 6d., owing to the army demand. Slaughter dung, 8d. for a horse load. Country labourer, 6d.; about town, 10d. Milk, seven pints a penny. Coals, 3s. 8d. to 5s. a barrel, six of which make a ton. Eggs, four a penny.

Cork labourers. Cellar ones, twenty thousand; have 1s. 1d. a day, and as much bread, beef, and beer as they can eat and drink, and seven pounds of offals a week for their families. Rent for their house, 40s. Masons'

and carpenters' labourers, 10d. a day. Sailors now 3 pounds a month and provisions: before the American war, 28s. Porters and coal-heavers paid by the great. State of the poor people in general incomparably better off than they were twenty years ago. There are imported eighteen thousand barrels annually of Scotch herrings, at 18s. a barrel. The salt for the beef trade comes from Lisbon, St. Ube's, etc. The salt for the fish trade from Roch.e.l.le. For b.u.t.ter English and Irish.

Particulars of the woollen fabrics of the county of Cork received from a manufacturer. The woollen trade, serges and camlets, ratteens, friezes, druggets, and narrow cloths, the last they make to 10s. and 12s. a yard; if they might export to 8s. they are very clear that they could get a great trade for the woollen manufactures of Cork. The wool comes from Galway and Roscommon, combed here by combers, who earn 8s. to 10s. a week, into b.a.l.l.s of twenty-four ounces, which is spun into worsteds of twelve skeins to the ball, and exported to Yarmouth for Norwich; the export price, 30 pounds a pack to 33 pounds, never before so high; average of them, 26 pounds to 30 pounds. Some they work up at home into serges, stuffs, and camlets; the serges at 12d. a yard, thirty-four inches wide; the stuffs sixteen inches, at 18d., the camlets at 9.5d. to 13d.; the spinners at 9d. a ball, one in a week; or a ball and half 12d.

a week, and attend the family besides; this is done most in Waterford and Kerry, particularly near Killarney; the weavers earn 1s. a day on an average. Full three-fourths of the wool is exported in yarn, and only one-fourth worth worked up. Half the wool of Ireland is combed in the county of Cork.

A very great manufacture of ratteens at Carrick-on-Suir; the bay worsted is for serges, shalloons, etc. Woollen yarn for coa.r.s.e cloths, which latter have been lost for some years, owing to the high price of wool.

The bay export has declined since 1770, which declension is owing to the high price of wool.

No wool smuggled, not even from Kerry; not a sloop's cargo in twenty years, the price too high; the declension has been considerable. For every eighty-six packs that are exported, a licence from the Lord Lieutenant, for which 20 pounds is paid.

From the Act of the last sessions of Great Britain for exporting woollen goods for the troops in the pay of Ireland, Mr. Abraham Lane, of Cork, established a new manufacture of army clothing for that purpose, which is the first at Cork, and pays 40 pounds a week in labour only. Upon the whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty years. Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the English out of; these are, particularly, broadcloths of one yard and half yard wide, from 3s. to 6s. 6d. a yard for the Levant trade. Friezes which are now supplied from Carca.s.sone in Languedoc. Friezes, of twenty-four to twenty-seven inches, at 10d. to 13d. a yard. Flannels, twenty-seven to thirty-six, from 7d. to 14d. Serges of twenty-seven to thirty-six inches, at 7d. to 12d. a yard; these would work up the coa.r.s.e wool. At Ballynasloe Fair, in July, 200,000 pounds a year bought in wool. There is a manufactory of knit-stocking by the common women about Cork, for eight or ten miles around; the yarn from 12d. to 18d. a pair, and the worsted from 16d. to 20d., and earn from 12d. to 18d. a week.

Besides their own consumption, great quant.i.ties are sent to the north of Ireland.

All the weavers in the country are confined to towns, have no land, but small gardens. Bandle, or narrow linen, for home consumption, is made in the western part of the county. Generally speaking, the circ.u.mstances of all the manufacturing poor are better than they were twenty years ago.

The manufactures have not declined, though the exportation has, owing to the increased home consumptions. Bandon was once the seat of the stuff, camlet, and s.h.a.g manufacture, but has in seven years declined above three-fourths. Have changed it for the manufacture of coa.r.s.e green linens, for the London market, from 6d. to 9d. a yard, twenty-seven inches wide; but the number of manufactures in general much lessened.

Rode to the mouth of Cork Harbour; the grounds about it are all fine, bold, and varied, but so bare of trees, that there is not a single view but what pains one in the want of wood. Rents of the tract south of the river Caragoline, from 5s. to 30s.; average, 10s. Not one man in five has a cow, but generally from one to four acres, upon which they have potatoes, and five or six sheep, which they milk, and spin their wool.

Labour 5d. in winter, 6d. in summer; many of them for three months in the year live on potatoes and water, the rest of it they have a good deal of fish. But it is remarked, at Kinsale, that when sprats are most plentiful, diseases are most common. Rent for a mere cabin, 10s. Much paring and burning; paring twenty-eight men a day, sow wheat on it and then potatoes; get great crops. The soil a sharp, stony land; no limestone south of the above river. Manure for potatoes, with sea-weed, for 26s., which gives good crops, but lasts only one year. Sea-sand much used; no sh.e.l.ls in it. Farms rise to two or three hundred acres, but are hired in partnership.

Before I quit the environs of Cork, I must remark that the country on the harbour I think preferable, in many respects, for a residence, to anything I have seen in Ireland. First, it is the most southerly part of the kingdom. Second, there are very great beauties of prospect. Third, by much the most animated, busy scene of shipping in all Ireland, and consequently, fourth, a ready price for every product. Fifth, great plenty of excellent fish and wild fowl. Sixth, the neighbourhood of a great city for objects of convenience.

September 25. Took the road to Nedeen, through the wildest region of mountains that I remember to have seen; it is a dreary but an interesting road. The various horrid, grotesque, and unusual forms in which the mountains rise and the rocks bulge; the immense height of some distant heads, which rear above all the nearer scenes, the torrents roaring in the vales, and breaking down the mountain sides, with here and there a wretched cabin, and a spot of culture yielding surprise to find human beings the inhabitants of such a scene of wildness, altogether keep the traveller's mind in an agitation and suspense. These rocks and mountains are many of them no otherwise improvable than by planting, for which, however, they are exceedingly well adapted.

Sir John Colthurst was so obliging as to send half a dozen labourers with me, to help my chaise up a mountain side, of which he gave a formidable account: in truth it deserved it. The road leads directly against a mountain ridge, and those who made it were so incredibly stupid, that they kept the straight line up the hill, instead of turning aside to the right to wind around a projection of it. The path of the road is worn by torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments, so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep, that the best path would be difficult to ascend--it may be supposed terrible: the labourers, two pa.s.sing strangers, and my servant, could with difficulty get the chaise up. It is much to be regretted that the direction of the road is not changed, as all the rest from Cork to Nedeen is good enough. For a few miles towards the latter place the country is flat on the river Kenmare, much of it good, and under gra.s.s or corn.

Pa.s.sed Mr. Orpine's at Ardtilly, and another of the same name at Killowen.

Nedeen is a little town, very well situated, on the n.o.ble river Kenmare, where ships of one hundred and fifty tons may come up; there are but three or four good houses. Lord Shelburne, to whom the place belongs, has built one for his agent. There is a vale of good land, which is here from a mile and a half to a mile broad; and to the north and south, great ridges of mountains said to be full of mines.

At Nedeen, Lord Shelburne had taken care to have me well informed by his people in that country, which belongs for the greatest part to himself, he has above one hundred and fifty thousand Irish acres in Kerry; the greatest part of the barony of Glanrought belongs to him, most of Dunkerron and Ivragh. The country is all a region of mountains, inclosed by a vale of flat land on the river; the mountains to the south come to the water's edge, with but few variations, the princ.i.p.al of which is Ardee, a farm of Lord Shelburne's to the north of the river, the flat land is one-half to three-quarters of a mile broad. The mountains to the south reach to Bear-haven, and those to the north to Dingle Bay; the soil is extremely various; to the south of the river all are sandstones, and the hills loam, stone, gravel, and bog. To the north there is a slip of limestone land, from Kilgarvon to Cabbina-cush, that is six miles east of Nedeen, and three to the west, but is not more than a quarter of a mile broad, the rest, including the mountains, all sandstone. As to its rents, it is very difficult to tell what they are; for land is let by the plough-land and gineve, twelve gineves to the plough-land; but the latter denomination is not of any particular quant.i.ty, for no two plough-lands are the same. The size of farms is various, from forty acres to one thousand; less quant.i.ties go with cabins, and some farms are taken by labourers in partnership.

Soon entered the wildest and most romantic country I had anywhere seen; a region of steep rocks and mountains which continued for nine or ten miles, till I came in view of Mucruss. There is something magnificently wild in this stupendous scenery, formed to impress the mind with a certain species of terror. All this tract has a rude and savage air, but parts of it are strikingly interesting; the mountains are bare and rocky, and of a great magnitude; the vales are rocky glens, where a mountain stream tumbles along the roughest bed imaginable, and receives many torrents, pouring from clefts, half overhung with shrubby wood; some of these streams are seen, and the roar of others heard, but hid by vast ma.s.ses of rock. Immense fragments, torn from the precipices by storms and torrents, are tumbled in the wildest confusion, and seem to hang rather than rest upon projecting precipices. Upon some of these fragments of rock, perfectly detached from the soil, except by the side on which they lie, are beds of black turf, with luxuriant crops of heath, etc., which appeared very curious to me, having nowhere seen the like; and I observed very high in the mountains--much higher than any cultivation is at present, on the right hand--flat and cleared s.p.a.ces of good gra.s.s among the ridges of rock, which had probably been cultivated, and proved that these mountains were not incapable from climate of being applied to useful purposes.

From one of these heights I looked forward to the Lake of Killarney at a considerable distance, and backward to the river Kenmare; came in view of a small part of the upper lake, spotted with several islands, and surrounded by the most tremendous mountains that can be imagined, of an aspect savage and dreadful. From this scene of wild magnificence, I broke at once upon all the glories of Killarney; from an elevated point of view I looked down on a considerable part of the lake, which gave me a specimen of what I might expect. The water you command (which, however, is only a part of the lake) appears a basin of two or three miles round; to the left it is inclosed by the mountains you have pa.s.sed, particularly by the Turk, whose outline is uncommonly n.o.ble, and joins a range of others, that form the most magnificent sh.o.r.e in the world: on the other side is a rising scenery of cultivated hills, and Lord Kenmare's park and woods; the end of the lake at your feet is formed by the root of Mangerton, on whose side the road leads. From hence I looked down on a pretty range of inclosures on the lake, and the woods and lawns of Mucruss, forming a large promontory of thick wood, shooting far into the lake. The most active fancy can sketch nothing in addition. Islands of wood beyond seem to join it, and reaches of the lake, breaking partly between, give the most lively intermixture of water; six or seven isles and islets form an accompaniment: some are rocky, but with a slight vegetation, others contain groups of trees, and the whole thrown into forms, which would furnish new ideas to a painter. Farther is a chain of wooded islands, which also appear to join the mainland, with an offspring of lesser ones scattered around.

Arrived at Mr. Herbert's at Mucruss, to whose friendly attention I owed my succeeding pleasure. There have been so many descriptions of Killarney written by gentlemen who have resided some time there, and seen it at every season, that for a pa.s.sing traveller to attempt the like would be in vain; for this reason I shall give the mere journal of the remarks I made on the spot, in the order I viewed the lake.

September 27. Walked into Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, to Oroch's Hill, in the lawn that he has cleared from that profusion of stones which lie under the wall; the scene which this point commands is truly delicious; the house is on the edge of the lawn, by a wood which covers the whole peninsula, fringes the slope at your feet, and forms a beautiful sh.o.r.e to the lake. Tomys and Glena are vast mountainous ma.s.ses of incredible magnificence, the outline soft and easy in its swells, whereas those above the eagle's nest are of so broken and abrupt an outline, that nothing can be imagined more savage, an aspect horrid and sublime, that gives all the impressions to be wished to astonish rather than please the mind. The Turk exhibits n.o.ble features, and Mangerton's huge body rises above the whole. The cultivated tracts towards Killarney form a sh.o.r.e in contrast to the terrific scenes I have just mentioned; the distant boundary of the lake, a vast ridge of distant blue mountains towards Dingle. From hence entered the garden, and viewed Mucruss Abbey, one of the most interesting scenes I ever saw; it is the ruin of a considerable abbey, built in Henry VI.'s time, and so entire, that if it were more so, though the building would be more perfect, the ruin would be less pleasing; it is half obscured in the shade of some venerable ash trees; ivy has given the picturesque circ.u.mstance, which that plant alone can confer, while the broken walls and ruined turrets throw over it

"The last mournful graces of decay;"

heaps of skulls and bones scattered about, with nettles, briars, and weeds sprouting in tufts from the loose stones, all unite to raise those melancholy impressions, which are the merit of such scenes, and which can scarcely anywhere be felt more completely. The cloisters form a dismal area, in the centre of which grows the most prodigious yew-tree I ever beheld, in one great stem, two feet diameter, and fourteen feet high, from whence a vast head of branches spreads on every side, so as to perform a perfect canopy to the whole s.p.a.ce. I looked for its fit inhabitant; it is a spot where

"The moping owl doth to the moon complain."

This ruin is in the true style in which all such buildings should appear; there is not an intruding circ.u.mstance, the hand of dress has not touched it, melancholy is the impression which such scenes should kindle, and it is here raised most powerfully.

From the abbey we pa.s.sed to the terrace, a natural one of gra.s.s, on the very sh.o.r.e of the lake; it is irregular and winding; a wall of rocks broken into fantastic forms by the waves: on the other side a wood, consisting of all sorts of plants, which the climate can protect, and through which a variety of walks are traced. The view from this terrace consists of many parts of various characters, but in their different styles complete; the lake opens a spreading sheet of water, spotted by rocks and islands, all but one or two wooded; the outlines of them are sharp and distinct; nothing can be more smiling than this scene, soft and mild, a perfect contrast of beauty to the sublimity of the mountains which form the sh.o.r.e: these rise in an outline, so varied, and at the same time so magnificent, that nothing greater can be imagined; Tomys and Glena exhibit an immensity in point of magnitude, but from a large hanging wood on the slope, and from the smoothness of the general surface, it has nothing savage, whereas the mountains above and near the eagle's nest are of the most broken outlines; the declivities are bulging rocks, of immense size, which seem to impend in horrid forms over the lake, and where an opening among them is caught, others of the same rude character rear their threatening heads. From different parts of the terrace these scenes are viewed in numberless varieties.