Morning journal and courier., 1889-02-16

CLUDEN, Ireland, Feb. 4.
 Tothe Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 In weeks wandering among the High
 lands of Connamara two unexpectedly win
 some objects of study to the walker, aside from the grandeur of scenery and the quaint
 ness of the peasantry, presented themselves I with that rare delight which all travellers experience from a sense of personal discove- ". These were the winter birds and wild fowl, and the winter fora of the silent and dazzling Irish heights. In that brief time a
 score of the former, which were recognized, I were seen; double that number of unknown habitats of, or visitors to, the weird and
 mystic regions added to the pleasant con-
 sciousness of ever-present companionship; while the presence of winter flowers were a
 source of unexpected pleasure and delight.
 My wan6erings lay among the Mamturk | Mountains and the famous Twelve Pins of ] Bunnabeola, the former to the east, and the latter to the west, of the long, crescent shaped, silvery inlaying of lovely Lough
 Insgh and it's sweet, far-reaching vale. The l origin of the name of the Mamturk range,
 and indeed of every river, lake, mountain, ] valley or town in Ireland is interesting. It
 is derived from the Celtic maum, an eleva- ted chasm or pass, especially one indicating
 some terrible separation by internal element al struggle, and tore, boar. Hence maum- 1 tore, or, Anglicized, Mamturk, "the pass of the boars;" for local tradition verifes the | ancient annals in wonderful legendary ac- | counts of battles with legions of wild boars 1 with which the cloud-capped heights were I once infested. The great pass itself winds l through the glen of Bealnabrack, where is ! also wondrous little mountain rivulet of
 the same name; and is the only inlet into the wild and picturesque Joyce's country. From its highest plateaus on clear day can l be seen, as through a veil of flmiest lace, ! the juncture of the Failmore and Realna~ brack, with their winding, dashing foamings through @ vast, indistinct mountain ampi- | theater beyond, the far, grand reaches of tough Corrib; the whole range of ragged half-mountain, half-moorland country away
 south to Galway Bay; the lone, pyramidal
 cone of grim of Croagh Patrick far in the
 north; and to the west, across glens and | wales with here foaming torrent, again a flashing lake, a shadowy tarn above, and be-
 hind and above hollow and murmurous
 burn, surmounted by gray or glittering crag I-all the weird and rugged grandeur of the tremendous northern declivities of the
 heights of Bunnabeola.
 1 These, the Twelve Pins of Bunnabeola, form the most remarkable single group of mountains in Ireland. Nor will except
 the Derrynasaggart, Mangarton, the Paps, | H.
 Reeks, those heights which cluster about the enchanted region of Killarney. ssPin" is a modification of the Celtic ben, 8 peak. Beanna Beola, their true name, signifies the ! "peaks of Beola." Beola was a mighty Fir
 bolg king who once reigned over all this | mountain-ribbed Connamara region; and his | memory is further commemorated in Toom- beola (Beola's tumulus or toomb) at the head | of Roundstone Bay, one of those tremendous l inreachings of the sea, few miles south of l the mountains, where Beola Is said to have
 been buried, and where there are ruins of a former majestic abbey. The Twelve Pins ! cover an area of about forty square miles,
 and comprise two chains or groups connect. l ed, or more properly, separated, by the lofty
 pass, Nam Inagh. Their highest summits
 are Knockannahiggin, Bengower Littery,
 pass of Nam Inagh crowns the wild and | wondrous glen of Inagh, through which a l mountain torrent dashes to the east to Inagh
 lough; while twin stream on the west | drains the mountain heights into the ocean
 at Ardbesr Bay and Clifden.
 l The whole twelve majestic peaks seem to
 cluster into the one mighty central monarch
 peak of Knoekannahiggen. From whatever direction they may be approached the scene 1 presented is one of solitude, sublimity, gran l deur. The loftiest heights are continually | wrapped in silvery mists, and the sunlight I \, H., ! indescribable. Lough Inagh to the east, in
 silent beauty, Lough Ballanahinch, creeping | towards the arm of the sea on the south, and occasionally glimpses of Oorrib to the far east, are the treat lakes which come within
 the range of vision. None of these is so be- wildering as upper and lower Killarney, but | their surroundings, as 1t set ln the very 1 heart of silence, as if forever looked by the Il eyes of desolation alone as if resting in the l very upper atmosphere of grandeur and sub | limity, build about them weird and enehant- | ing coRjurings no other group of Irish lakes ! possess. But aside from these, from the l summit Of knockannahiggen two score tiny | lakes may be seen, like fecks of silver set in l wreaths of emerald and amethyst; and, un. | seen, a score more may be located, where the purple heights are hollowed and the hidden loughs below send upward reflected light, l shining through the ilmy air ss if so many | mammoth opals lay throbbing there in those | witching mountain depths. Mighty escarp- | ments of quartz flash like walls of furnished l steel. Great strata of rcd sinople run like streams of blood across miles of basic rock. Pallid limestone lifts precipitous walls one l thousand feet in height. Over one of these, far loftier still, leaps stupendous torrent into the dark waters of Lough Inagh. Milk quartz and rock crystal, interspersed with the wondrous serpentine, rise in lofty cliffs, I until even a sluggard's fancy pictures castles of surpassing splendor. And in, through T III E..1 Il. feathery mists blending the near savor of the sea with the delicious and ethereal odor of loftiest land into subtlest elinir for sense and soul, that the exaltation of elation could not but move that one genius in descriptive in- depreciation and revelation, Harriet Martin eau, when standing here, to exclaim in rapt delight: "Here we are at the ends of the earth. It is like breathing cream!"
 The handsome mountain finch, 8 rare visi- tant of any region in Ireland save in severest winters, was the very first foreign tourist I met in the Connamara Highlands. He and host of his kin were here dividing the hon. ors with the Connaught pig-that one ob- outlines and impalpable thinness those of the "razor back" hog of the American south in querulous gropings and scratchiDgs for the diminutive, delicious mast of the beech, which skirts in noble massings many of the lower mountain plateaus and de6les. Here and there where swollen streams had left un- couth deposits upon their banks, on the shores of tiny lakes where sharp blasts had churned the waters into fury beneath the bases of overhanging cliffs, or again at the edges of unkempt mountain roads, focks of 8 score or more of the little mountain bunt- l ings were found, hopping jerkily about and picking at the refuse like nice little old pro fessors pothering over some anatomical study. did not see the bittern, but heard his hollow boom in the grewsome twilight; and saw the superstitious peasant at my side
 cross himself hastily and move his lips in prayer. This bird is now an unusual speci- | men in the cultivated districts of Ireland; but among these desolate mountain tarns | and bogs it still skulks and booms in the l gray hours between day and night. To the l ignorant humans near him his call typi6es
 the voice of offended deity; while many a poor, belated wretch, on hearing the bit terms mournful drum, dashes along the mountain paths in an ecstacy of fear, believ- | ing in truth the awful "bsnshee" is pursuing and wailing its s'keen" of death in his very ears. The droll and nervous, though bright and daring, little bluetit, or s'stonechat" as the peasants call it, was here with 8 myriad 1 followers, about and within the copses skirts