| Leaving our provisions with the fisherman, who lives here, we embarked; and, gliding along the delightful shades of Genaá, we entered Mucruss lake, between Brickeen and Dinas island, under a single gothic arch, which is thrown across to connect them. This lake is small, but very marked in its character, which indeed they all are. [Footnote: "I should distinguish the upper lake as being the most sublime; the lower the most beautiful; and this (Mucruss) lake the most picturesque; the winding passage leading to the upper, contains a surprizing combination of the three, and probably is not to be exceeded by any spot in the world.] // The north and eastern sides are broken into the most grotesque forms; the rocks are stupendous, crowned with the most picturesque foliage, unassisted by soil. The waving groves of Mucruss lend their cool and grateful shade, in contrast with their opposite neighbour, the rugged woodless Turk; beyond which, in transcendent magnitude rises Mangerton. / –Over head up grow / Insuperable height of loftiest shade, / Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, / A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend / Shade above shade, a woody theatre /Of stateliest view– / Luxuriant: meanwhile murmuring waters fall / Down the slope hills dispers'd, or in a lake / –Unite their streams. / Its known altitude is 1020 yards above the surface of the lake, which lies considerably // higher than the sea. It abounds with extraordinary objects, well worth (to the curious naturalist) the trouble of exploring. On its western side is a small circular lake, or bason, about six hundred yards in diameter, across the top; from the brink, looking downwards, it forms a fearful depth of nearly three hundred yards; its sides are almost perpendicular, and of an equal degree of declivity; this the natives call the Devil's punch bowl, from its similar regular concavity. On the side next Mucruss, there is an immense perpendicular chasm, equal in depth to the height of the sides of the bowl, through which the overflow- // ing of this lake empties itself, tumbling down the sides of the hill, nearly two hundred feet into Mucruss lake, forming a grand and broken fall. [pp. 136-139] |
