be seen in them to gladden the heart of the philanthropist. Small farmers' cottages, that would formerly be a disgrace to a Zulu or an Esquimaux, are now not only generally clean, but sometimes beautiful. Flowers in pots in the windows and evergreens creeping up the walls of a peasant's cottage would have caused him to be laughed at by his neighbours fifty years ago, but now they cause him to be respected instead of being laughed at. He will become again what he once was, one of the most soulful and un-Philistine of beings; it is probable he will become such when better laws and freer institutions shall have raised him from the slough of poverty and despondency in which he has been steeping for centuries. Tourists and the travelling public in general will find good accommodation at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Athlone, in which town boats can be hired by those going either up or down the Shannon. "EMANIA THE GOLDEN" Two miles west of the city of Armagh lies an earthen fort known as the "Navan Ring." This is all that remains of the renowned palace of the Pagan Kings of Ulster, the real name of which was Emain Macha, which has been Latinised Emania, and corrupted into Navan. After Tara, Emania is the most historic spot of Irish soil. No other place in all Ireland, Tara only excepted, is so often mentioned in the historic and romantic tales that have been preserved in such abundance in ancient Gaelic. Emania is the great centre of that wondrous cycle of legend, history, and song known as the Cuchullainn cycle of Celtic literature. Every tale and legend in it refer more or less to Emania. It is curious that while hardly any of the treasures of ancient Irish manuscript literature we possess were compiled in Ulster, there is hardly a page of them, no matter in what province they were originally composed, that does not mention this now almost obliterated stronghold of the Ulster kings. The "Book of Leinster" was compiled in Kildare or in Glendoloch, and for nearly a thousand years, or from the imposition of the Leinster Tribute early in the second century down to the time of Brian Boramha, Leinster and Ulster were inveterate enemies, yet the "Book of Leinster" teems with mention of Emania. Even in the great manuscript books compiled in Connacht and Munster, the name of Emania occurs next in frequency to that of Tara.