The Eccles Hotel is a rambling old house, situated at the head of Bantry Bay on Glengariff Harbor. It stands beneath the sharply rising hill and only the highway lies between it and the water's edge; the outlook from its veranda is not surpassed by any we saw in the Kingdom, not even by the enchanting harbor of Oban or the glorious surroundings of Tintagel. True, we saw it at its best, just as the sun was setting and transforming the blue waters into a sheet of burnished gold. As far as the eye can reach the long inlet lies between bare granite headlands, interspersed here and there with verdant banks, while the bright waters were dotted with wooded islets. The sun sank beneath the horizon, purple shadows gathered in the distance, and the harbor gleamed mirrorlike in the twilight. An old coast-defense castle, standing on a headland near the entrance, lent the needed touch of human interest to the scene. Well might Thackeray exclaim, "Were such a bay lying upon English shores it would be a world's wonder. Perhaps if it were on the Mediterranean or Baltic, English travellers would flock to it by the hundreds. Why not come and see it in Ireland?" Indeed, more are coming to see it today; the hotel was crowded almost to our exclusion and we had to take what was left. The motor is bringing many, for it is more than ten miles from Bantry, the nearest railway station, and is not easily accessible to travelers whose time is somewhat limited. Our route from Glengariff leads directly over the hills to Kenmare. The ascent is steep in places and a long tunnel pierces the crest of the hill. We see much weather-beaten country, stretches of purple granite boulders devoid of vegetation and bleak beyond description. From the summit of the hills we glide down a winding and stony road into Kenmare, passing with considerable difficulty many coaches loaded with trippers, for this is a favorite coaching route. Someone has said that Ireland is like an ugly picture set in a beautiful frame. We may dissent from the view that the interior is ugly; we have seen much charming country, though on the whole not the equal of England or Scotland. The vast peat bogs are dreary, the meadowlands monotonous, the villages, if interesting, far from beautiful, and the detached cottages often positively painful in their filth and squalor. But the frame of the picture--the glorious coast line--surely, mile for mile, its equal may hardly be found on the globe. One will behold every mood of sea and shore and sky; beauty and grandeur combined and every range of coloring, from the lucent gold of the sunset and the deep blue stillness of the summer noonday to the gray monotone of the storm-swept granite waste.