Loch Erne is certainly the most peculiar and also the longest lake in Ireland. From where it may be said to begin, near Belturbet in the County Cavan, to where it ceases to be a lake, and pours its waters into the sea through the river Erne, it is fully thirty-five miles long in a bird line. Its peculiarity consists in its extraordinary beginnings, and the number of its islands. Its beginnings are winding, mazy, and, on the map, almost untraceable water ways, that twist and turn in almost every direction through swamps and bogs, with no attraction save for the sportsman in pursuit of water fowl. As one approaches Enniskillen the glories of Loch Erne commence. There is nothing in the shape of mountains to be seen, but they are not missed; for such is the beauty of green round hills on both sides, and such the wondrous number and variety of the islands, that if there were mountains as lofty as the Alps in view, one could hardly spare time to look at them. The islands seem innumerable, and the shores are so indented with bays, and the lake itself so pierced by jutting headlands, that on sailing on Loch Erne it is often impossible to know an island from a peninsula, or a peninsula from an island. There is certainly no lake in Ireland or in Great Britain whose shores are so indented as are those of Loch Erne. The great charm of its shores and islands is their roundness and their greenness. They are not low or swampy, but high and swelling, forming scenes of quiet, and, it might be said, pastoral beauty, on which one could gaze for days and weeks without tiring. Variety of the most striking kind is one of the peculiarities of Loch Erne. It begins in tortuous, narrow, confused bog streams. It then assumes its fairest aspect, studded with innumerable islands, and sometimes so narrowed by far-entering promontories that it is in some places only a few hundred yards wide; but as it spreads northwards it gets wider and wider, until at last it is like a great inland sea, seven or eight miles wide. If finer views may be had of Loch Ree than of Loch Erne, in variety of scenery, number of islands, and startling contrasts, Loch Erne is without a rival among Irish lakes. If it and Loch Ree had the mountains of Killarney, Killarney might well tremble for the fame it enjoys of being the most beautiful of Irish lakes.