ranges of mountains, was not flat, or soft, or smoothno meadow, no morass, no bog-but the most apparently-tumultuous, yet actually regular, congeries of rocks that ever was seen. Suppose yon the Bay of Biscay in a hurricane, from the west-suppose yon the tremendous swell, when the top-gallant mast of a ship would be hid within the trough of its waves— and now suppose that by some Almighty fiat all this vexed ocean was arrested in an instant, and there fixed as a specimen of God's wonders in the deep. Such you may suppose Glengariff. It appears as if the stratifications of the rock were forced up by some uniform power from the central abyss, and there left to stand at a certain and defined angle, a solidified storm. And now suppose, that in every indenture, hole, crevice, and inflexion of those rocks, grew a yew or holly; there the yew, with its yellow tinge; and here the arbutus, with its red stem and leaf of brighter green, and its rough, wild, uncontrolled growth, adorning, and at the same time disclosing the romantic singularity of the scene. I know not that ever I read of such a place, so wild and so beautiful." (Cut No. 15.)

In that morning of tremendous rain we take our seats in a covered car, to pursue our journey towards Cork, by Macroom. Not one feature of the scenery to be descried except the river, by the side of which the road for some time runs. But after two hours' travel we at length come to a wonder, which such a day as this raises into sublimity. The Pass of Camineagh has been described by Otway, as it appeared to him under brighter circumstances:

"This deep and extraordinary chasm which Nature has excavated through these mountains, and which, within these last ten years has been taken advantage of in order to make an excellent road between Macroom and Bantry, is really one of the most picturesque things in Ireland. It is well worth a journey to see its rocks and precipices-its cliffs clothed with ivy, and, here and there, interspersed through the masses of rocks, old holly and yew-trees, and occasionally an arbutus; and then its strange and sudden windings you look back, and you cannot find out how you got in-before you, and you cannot imagine how you are to get forward. You might imagine that the Spirit of the Mountains had got you into his stronghold, and here you were impounded by everlasting enchantment. Then the surpassing loneliness of the place,

'I never

So deeply felt the force of solitude.

High over-head the eagle soared serene, And the gray lizard in the rocks below Basked in the sun.''

But when we were hemmed in, for about a mile, by the mighty chasm, we saw neither the yew, nor the holly,

nor the bright arbutus ;-no cliffs clothed with ivy looked smilingly down upon us. We saw only a double wall of rocks, down whose sides torrents were dashing at every step,-cataracts that hissed and foamed as they rushed over the steeps, whose tops were one a sea of mist. This Pass of Camineagh was the scene of a strange affair in 1822, when the Rockites were in insurrection. As the soldiery passed through the defile, the "boys," who were hidden amidst the rocks, suddenly loosened an enormous mass which they had quietly undermined, and down it came into the glenblocking up the defile. They were a moment too late. The soldiery had gone by; and their plan of overwhelming the loyalists by superior numbers was effectually frustrated by their own act. The rock which had fallen was an impassable barrier.

As we emerge out of the Pass we see a strange procession before us-laden carts, followed by crowds of women shrouded in their dark blue cloaks from the falling torrent. The whole scene was eminently picturesque. But the picturesque was soon forgotten in the stern reality which belonged to this sight. The carts were bearing Indian meal from Bantry, for distribution at various stations along this road. We soon reached one of these. There, in small shelter, sat a hundred or more of patient women, waiting for the dole that was to avert starvation for another week. Those who have clamoured against the temporary out-door relief that Ireland's poor have required, and were more especially needing when we saw them, should have witnessed this Indian meal procession, and have seen the unhappy women staggering under their loaded bags to the cabins in the hills; and, we believe, they would have come to feel how just are the words which Mr. Nicholls uttered-(Mr. Nicholls, who introduced the Workhouse Test for Ireland, but was too wise and humane not to know that a Famine made an exception to his system)— memorable words,-" The preservation of human life is a paramount duty."

And here we quit these remembrances of a week which opened to us new sources of pleasure, and unwonted experiences. We saw this portion of Ireland at a period of great depression. Better prospects are arising in a season of abundance; but let it not be thought in England that any amount of abundance will cure the social miseries of the land. We have our work to do; and we cannot set about it more effectually than now, when angry passions are still, and the people are hopeful:

"There is a vision in the heart of each,

Of justice, mercy, wisdom; tenderness

To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure-
And these, embodied in a woman's form,
That best transmits them, pure as first received
From God above her, to mankind below."

BROWNING.