We reached Killarney without trunks, and the conveyance sent to meet us broke down on the way to the hotel; but he would meet no _contretemps_ save with a smile, and it was borne in on me that it was because he was an Irishman that Italian happy-go-luckiness had never ruffled him. So we fell in with the leisurely ways of the land, and were fain to “enjoy the soft rain” at that romantic spot and watch for the beautiful shapes of the hills to appear out of the mists on the lake. Next morning, however, that unique green-blue sky, washed with rain and dappled with wisps of cloud, smiled on us in faint sunshine, and from that hour our journey was one passing from fair to fairer scenes. In a short time our train was climbing, or burrowing, through perilous cliffs of granite, crowned with lonely moors and, presently swooping down on the glorious coast-line, that makes for Valencia Island. This we left on one side, and at Lough Caragh we also did not halt, tempting as it was; for our destination was Waterville, where we had rooms booked at the charming Great Southern Hotel for the fishing season; and after an hour or so more of leisurely travel we reached Cahirciveen, where a ramshackle trap waited to carry us over the moors to the village that lies twixt sea and lough. The whole journey, and the last of it not least, was a revelation to him of which I think he was proud to talk to me, and I certainly had formed no notion of the beauties of _The Kingdom of Kerry_. The rough road across the wild heather-moor was bordered almost continuously with hedges of the small purple-red fuchsia in full bloom, and the cabins--white or pink-washed, with thatched roofs--that we passed at rare intervals, were shaded with it and covered with honeysuckle. “You live in a fair country,” said Joe to an old man standing one day at the door of his tiny hovel; and I--looking beyond him to the dim range of the Macgillicuddy Reeks--added, “and with beautiful hills.” “The visitors say ’tis fair, but I’ve seen it _arl_ me life,” replied the proprietor, with a quaint smile. And then to me--“but sure the Reeks are illigant in winter wi’ the darlin’ snaws upon them.” But that was later. That day we were silent with contented fatigue till the muffled boom of the great Atlantic breakers began to fall as distant thunder on our ears: then suddenly Ballinskelligs’ Bay lay before us with the massive headlands of Bolus and Hog’s Head guarding it from the Ocean. The shore is wild and desolate with the sense of the vast Atlantic ever present; but soon we turned inland again towards the mountains of the “deep Glenmore,” and there, under the purple shadow of Mount Knockaline, lay a long, grave Lough with a tiny deserted islet in its midst upon which one of the ancient beehive cells stands under the eaves of a ruined church. It is Lough Currane, and we drove under overhanging fuchsias, to the Great Southern Hotel on its shore.