KILARNEY, a small town in the county of Kerry in Ireland, which gives name to a lake, one of the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world. This lake, which may not improperly be distinguished into three, the upper, lower, and middle, excepting one narrow valley on the south, through which a river runs into the upper lake, is surrounded with one continued range of lofty mountains, rocks, and precipices, the immense declivities of which are covered with woods intermixed with ever-greens, from nearly their tops down to the verge of the lakes; add to this the number of rivulets cascading from channels skirted with trees of every kind down the sides of these enormous mountains, some of them to the height of 100 yards. Over the lake are dispersed a great number of islands of very different extent; and all of them of any size, (one only excepted, which is inhabited by an innumerable flight of rabbits,) beautifully ornamented with trees of every kind, with a most delightful intermixture of ever-greens, as box, holly, yew, and the arbutus or strawberry-tree. Hollies of a prodigious magnitude are found here, some of above two feet diameter in the body of the tree. The arbutus grows in great plenty and perfection on many of the islands; the largest of them are about six or seven inches in diameter, and 15 or 20 feet high. They appear in their greatest beauty and perfection about November. There is a most enchanting prospect from some of the surrounding mountains, particularly from a very lofty one called the Turk, because its white chalky top looks like a Turkish turban. On the very summit of one of the Mangerton mountains, in the neighbourhood, is a small round lake, of about a quarter of a mile diameter across the top, called the devil's punch-bowl. From the surface of the lake to the top of the sides of this vast concavity or bowl, may be about 300 yards; and when viewed from the circular top, it really has a most astonishing appearance. The depth of it, doubtless, is vastly great, but not, as the natives of it pretend, unfathomable. The discharge of the superfluous waters of this bowl, through a chasm or gap into the middle lake, forms one of the finest cascades in the world, visible for above 150 yards. The devil's punch-bowl, as it is called in our maps, is by the natives in the neighbourhood termed Poulier Infrin, that is, "the hole of hell." The echoes among the hills in the southern and more inclosed parts of the great lake, but especially in the winding, deep, and intricate valley leading from the lower to the upper lake, are equally delightful and astonishing. There are some cannon placed in the most advantageous situations by the lord Kenmare, a Roman Catholic nobleman, on purpose for the entertainment of travellers, who generally provide themselves with ammunition for loading them. The reports, on the discharge of these cannon, resemble the nearest of any thing in nature a most violent peal of thunder rolling among the mountains. Here also musical instruments, especially the horn and trumpet, afford the most delightful and ravishing enter-
tainment to the ear; and to a sportsman nothing can equal the spirit and elevating joy of a flag hunt among the woods and mountains about the lake of Kilarney, where the cry of the hounds, the harmony of the horns resounding from the hills on every side, the universal shouts of joy along the valleys, and from the sides of the mountains, re-echoing from hill to hill, and from rock to rock, gives the highest satisfaction and delight that can possibly arise from the chase. The gentlemen who attend the hunt are generally in boats on the lake, during the diversion; for to follow it by land, either on foot or horseback, is impracticable. Among the high craggy inaccessible heights that surround the lakes, there is one stupendous and frightful rock, the front of which, to the water, is a most horrible precipice, called the eagles nest, from its being seldom without a nest of them upon its top. On the eastern side is a rich and fertile plain for two or three miles, through which descends a river into the lower lake; and through a valley at the west end, the whole collection of waters discharge themselves into the sea. On the north-east side stands the town of Kilarney, in a delightful situation; and, in the summer-time, from the number of visitors to the lake, is a very cheerful lively town, it being as much the fashion in Ireland to visit this lake at that season, as it is elsewhere to go to drink the waters at the public spas, or to bathe in the sea. In the neighbourhood of the lake are a great many seats and villas, ruins, &c. Pearls of great value are sometimes found about the lake; salmon also are caught in great plenty and perfection, and sold at the moderate price of one penny per pound. The fishery is the property of the earl of Kenmare; to whom also belongs a great part, if not the whole, of the lake, with its beautiful islands. The bowels of the peninsula, between the upper and lower lakes, are fraught with mines of copper; and even silver, it is said, hath been extracted from them. They are prodigiously deep, and have been worked a great way under the lake.