Morning journal and courier., 1888-12-08
And from the messy wheel That flashing plays meath old Dunmoe


 while at sharp bend Of the river at the right, upon another lofty eminence, are the imposing ruins and still used graveyard of Ardmulchan church, or the church of Mael- chu's height, so old that we st least know the place was pillaged and burned by the Danes nearly one thousand years ago. Height and erag surmounted by feudal ruins and crum- bling chapels, or crowned with majestic for 'ests, now greet the eye in wondrous profu- sion; and suddenly through an open reach in the foot path trees the noble Stackallen bridge is seen, swailing it's length across the deep, swift stream. Lettering at the ap- proach to it's seven great arches where white highways sweep grandly down from the for est hooded uplands, and where another lock seethes and roars, there flash out of the trees
 by the lock two mounted trainers with a
 pack of two score mottled fox hounds, pant ing whelps at their last coursings before the chose; and the bitter reflection comes both to myself and the peasant beside me who turns to look at the young pack from Beau~
 parc that two score Irish families could be kept from eviction and starvation for what it annually costs that those mottled GU bs may live.
 Higher rise the heights of the Boyne. Denser stand the woods at it's sides. In the few miles of sky, water and forests that fol- lowed, were it not for the wild birds of Ire land, your pilgrimage would be dismally lone with only the wraiths of past centuries about you But far in the clear sky the jackdaws scurry and scream. High above them the field fares and starlings wheel and gather for the winter campaign. The white ringed pheasant rises from the copse edges, l and whitring seeks the denser forest depths. The blue hawk hovers above the sedges for prev The white breasted onsel sagely sits 1 upon water worn stones, and, as if suddenly l recollecting it's vocation, dives for it's long | search for food upon the rivers bottom. | The white collared reed sparrow sits hidden | upon swaying rush and sounds it's monoto- 1 nous, ceaseless call With 8 whirr and 1 splash the lone mud hen hutters from canal 1 to river and from river back again, it's start 1 ling scramble and noise intensified by the l river valley siIences. While ever and again | the sedge warbler from among the reeds and rushes not only pours out it's own soul iu | sweetest notes, but, as the most forgivable o1 l all plagiarists, thrills you with the stolen l melody of countless other birds. Wander, 1 ing along and thus feasting you pass Bean pare demesne; the ruins of Castle Dexter gloomy and drear; the pagan royal cemetery of Brugh na Boinne; stroll wonderingly through the numberless ecclesiastical ruins of Slane, upon whose heights St. Patrick first raised the Cross of Christianity in Ire' 1 land; wander past the spot where the weak hearted James lost Ireland to the Irish, and l the viotors have reared the most conspicu. l ously insulting monument of modern times dive deep among the vast sepulchral monndf 1 of New-grange and Dowth, as mighty, as an 1 cient and as marvellous as the Egyptian pyr.
 amids; and as the shadows gather come tc the end of the 'tpleasant Boyns' river, upor
 which Ireland rose and fell, where the even. l ing lights are beginning to glesm from ths heights, towers and turrets of ancient Dro gheda by the Irish sea.
 EDGAR L. WATERMAN.