illarney. Landed to the right of it, and walked under the thick shade
of the wood, over a rocky declivity, close to the torrent stream, which
breaks impetuously from rock to rock, with a roar that kindles
expectation. The picture in your fancy will not exceed the reality; a
great stream bursts from the deep bosom of a wooded glen, hollowed into a
retired recess of rocks and trees, itself a most pleasing and romantic
spot, were there not a drop of water: the first fall is many feet
perpendicularly over a rock; to the eye it immediately makes another, the
basin into which it pours being concealed; from this basin it forces
itself impetuously between two rocks. This second fall is also of a
considerable height; but the lower one, the third, is the most
considerable; it issues in the same manner from a basin hid from the
point of view. These basins being large, there appears a space of
several yards between each fall, which adds much to the picturesque
scenery; the whole is within an arch of wood, that hangs over it; the
quantity of water is so considerable, as to make an almost deafening
noise, and uniting with the torrent below, where the fragments of rock
are large and numerous, throw an air of grandeur over the whole. It is
about seventy feet high. Coast from hence the woody shores of Tomys and
Glena; they are upon the whole much the most beautiful ones I have
anywhere seen; Glena woods having more oak, and some arbutuses, are the
finer and deeper shades; Tomys has a great quantity of birch, whose
foliage is not so luxuriant. The reader may figure to himself what these
woods are, when he is informed that they fill an unbroken extent of six
miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile and a half in breadth,
all hanging on the sides of two vast mountains, and coming down with a
full robe of rich luxuriance to the very water's edge. The acclivity of
these hills is such, that every tree appears full to the eye. The
variety of the ground is great; in some places great swells in the
mountain-side, with corresponding hollows, present concave and convex
masses; in others, considerable ridges of land and rock rise from the
sweep, and offer to the astonished eye yet other varieties of shade.
Smaller mountains rise regularly from the immense bosom of the larger,
and hold forth their sylvan heads, backed by yet higher woods. To give
all the varieties of this immense scenery of forest is impossible. Above
the whole is a