The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-13

One of these is the ever-present films of
cloud ceaselessly stretching their witch
ing reaches across mountains and ming
ling with the forest uudulations them
selves. Let the upper skies be never so
clear and radiant, these tender ghostly
painters are ever at work weaving their
sweet and gentle spells.
Another is a rare and infinite contrast,
though overwhelming seeming, in all the
marvellous foliage of this sylvan region.
Still another is one which can never be
rightly told. It is alone felt 1t is the
heart-throb the soul gives back to nature
in her loveliest form and mood not in Ella
ton. but in a strange placidity and tran
guilty which gently balances between
melancholy and eXaltatiOn; the ineffable
tenderness from loving nature TO the
nature loved
Entirely aside from historic or religious
association of thought and with every
ruin. shrine or legend, so quickening to
the Imagination, eXpunged, for these
simple physical facts alone the Killarney
region will ever remain the most beauti-
full spot in all the world.
Forest is here in trackless waste where
the red deer hide; in grove, in copse; in
matted masses hanging from inaccessible
heights. Shru Dbery is here in such lux
uriance that it's richness and profusiOn
cannot be elsewhere equaled outside the
tropics Water is here in such glints and
gleamings as no pen or brush can ever
fitly depict in lakes that startle one as
If in sudden awakening consciousness Of
surpassing dream; in torrents solemn
and mighty; in cascades filmy as streams
of lace; in rivers tortuous and wild,
sonGtul and murmurOuS; III pools deep,
with soft and billowy ascents; with crags
and cliffs majestic, where eagles nest and
scream; and with peaks above the clouds.
All these in all forms are Killarney S.
so tenderly, so sweetly and so sublimely
intermingled, that the reverent heart,
full of its surprising lOveliness throbbing
with loftiest eXaltation, cannot less than
exclaim:
Here stood the great Artifcer and
lovingly builded and blessed!n
To every human heart with the thrill of
homesick longing to its birth-spot that
knows tor its own youth-tide picture the
hills and lakes of Kerry, there Isl subtler
witch-wand still. Tenderer than all its
verdure sweeter than its winsome nature
presences, kindlier still than face of
mountain. vale or lake, are those gentle
and intangible wraiths with which JOY
and sadness have peopled all these sylvan
courts down a thousand misty years.
Not sages nor cOurtiers, not even kings
nor saints are these. They are the good
people, of the lovely region, an endless
scourge to the sordid, the cruel and the
unjust, and as certain in their rewards
to the gentle, the merciful and the good.
OF all the fairy brood which holds
loving place in the secret affections of
the Kerry peasantry, none is cherished
with greater reverence than the wrath
or spirit or arraght (specter) of chief
tain, who. many hundreds of years ago,
ruled over the region in the heart of
which sleeps these wondrOus Killarney
lakes, which in ancient times were
known throughout ireland as Longh
Lean.
This ruler was the O'Donoghue. So
wise, noble and virtuous was this great
prince, so grand were his benefaCtionS,
so stern his justice-tor 10 this day is
pointed out the prison of stone where his
own son was inCarcerated for wantOn
mischief-so benehcent and kind his
reign among the lowly, that death came
to him not as to ordinary mortals, but 10
the nature of strange and beautiful
translation.
During a great feast at his court and
while revealing to his rapt listeners the
joys, sorrows, conquests and miseries of
his descendants, he STROBE suddenly from
among them out upon the unyielding
waters of the silvery lake. When half
way across, the gray haired cheftain
turned and stretched his arms out in
gesture of blessing toward his people
Then, with radiant smile upon his face,
he waved them farewell with the com
posed air of one going upon a brief
journey, and suddenly disappeared within
the bosom of the enchanted lake.
IL was not for those who saw the
O'Donoghue thus depart to ever again
Il IL I.
features. But from time to time he re-
visits his ancient domains. He often ap-
pears in the gulSe of a great chieftain,
mounted upon a milk-white steed and
followed by numberless youths and
maidens, who innocently disport on
moonlight nights in the pure waters of
the lake, but who vanish from sight as
the first rays of the morning streak the
eastern sky.
Again he is seen upon his white charger
slowly clrcling the shores of the lake.
Oftenest, however, he comes on foot ana
alone; a bland, old, white-haired pilgrim,
beaming upon all he sees; seeking the suf-
fering and distraught; and bringing
with his coming, which is always in the
glorious May-time if seen by many, sure
portent for abundant harvests for the
year.
There are those with such sour and
sceptical natures as to doubt that the
O'DOnoghue ever existed above all, that
his kindly wrath is from time TO time en-
countered upon Killarney's dreamful
shores; but TO such it must be seriously
said that there is not a family in all
Kerry which does not boast of at least
one member, living or dead, who has been
blessed with loving look from his dear
old eyes or an encouraging nod from his sill
very head, or of confidential acquaintance
with some true soul who has lfIthis be
rot enough TO settle all controversy, then
the writer of these true tales is willing To
add that at the time of the O'Douogh ue S
return in May time of 1855, he himself
met the venerable parsonage, hearing
from his own lips enough 10 prove beyond
question the substance of the events OF
his visit as here related; and, that in the
language of the good folk of County
Kerry, "'tw ere rubbing grese to a fat
pig to say more"
II was the widow Neny who first saw
the O'DOnoghue, on the occasion of his
disappearance at Killarney and her hut
between the boisterous Owenreach river
and the great highway leading from
Glengarif TO the lakes has ever since
been almost a shrine in consequence.
She had Just returned from the noun.
tain side Of Carrantuohill with a basket
of last years beech nuts for her two fat
pigs, mot for the rising of the heart that
was in them sure, as she truly remarked
but for the shamin of attn in them,
Till riut day was DER, - and was inst bOut