Five hundred feet below this small tarn lies the larger lake, Coomasaharn; it too has a shore line much wilder and more rugged than the majority of British lakes. Great boulders and masses of glacier-worn rocks surround it, whilst at its head the precipices extend almost to the summit of Coomacarrea (2542 feet). In some places these precipices give good rock scrambling, but it is rather surprising, after a couple of hours' climbing on good hard rock, to find that the top of the mountain is a flat peat moor which in some places almost overhangs the wild corrie below. This capping of peat on several of even the wilder mountains seems to be characteristic of many of the summits on the west coast of Ireland. The highest summits of the Reeks, however, are quite free from peat. There are, of course, many other mountainous districts besides those I have already mentioned. The Mourne mountains, where the mountaineer may, if he chooses, collect topaz and beryls of a most exquisite blue, the Wicklow, Tipperary, or Waterford groups, all possess wild mountain scenery, and many rare plants can be found there. But after all, undoubtedly it is the picturesque side of the mountain land that makes to the wanderer in Ireland the most forcible appeal of all. It is the atmospheric softness, and the rich vegetation, which, on the west of Ireland, covers the valleys, glens, and the mountain-sides, it is the colour of the deep and lovely tarns, of the expanses of heather, and of the distances, and lastly, it is the rugged, rock-bound coast, a coast of many bays, of desolate islands, of solitary sea stacks, of cliffs, of sandy beaches, and wonderful sea caves, a coast that has for ages withstood the attacks of the mighty waves of the storm-driven Atlantic; these are the beauties of which this Irish mountain land can boast, which after all are of more worth than the attractions of many inaccessible pinnacles and many ranges of ugly but excessively steep and high mountains. FOOTNOTES: [M] It used to be in the Loan Collection at the South Kensington Museum. [N] _The Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal_, vol. ii. p. 99. PREHISTORIC CLIMBING NEAR WASTDALE HEAD 'Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.' _Childe Harold._