incapable of corruption; it might be forwarded to all parts of the world; and I trust that Paris and London may yet derive ample trade in, and derive important advantages from this too-long neglected water. While I was there I observed sundry pilgrims going round the holy well on their naked knees; they trudged along upon stones set in the miry puddle, and it was curious to observe the countenances of these people, as with intense eagerness and abstracted looks they proceeded repeating in low and suppressed tones sundry Paters and Aves. There are sundry peculiar Station-days, on which the crowds resorting hither are immense; hither the sick and healthy flock, the sick to obtain health-the healthy to merit grace. The resort to this blessed well not only cures complaints, but it procures marriages; and it is ascertained much to the satisfaction of his Reverence the Parish Priest, that after these Stations, weddings are rife, and therefore approaches to this well are crowded on such occasions with the young and the healthy, the gay and the welldressed; and as much conviviality and merrymaking is mixed up here, with the superstitions of the devotioners of the Church of Rome, as is usual in all quarters of the globe. There is one accompaniment to this blessed well, which is found to help the efficacy of its waters not a little, and that more especially since they have been found effectual in the cure of human maladies, I mean a snug comfortable little cabin, just under the Old Rock and close to the well, in which pilgrims can get at a reasonable rate a drop of the "Poteen;" and a dash of this elixir illegalis through a bottle of water, has been found to further its sanative effects in no small degree and measure. A few days after our walk to Doune Rock, we set out on an excursion to an Alpine lake, some miles off, embosomed in the midst of wild and lofty mountains. The valley in which this lake lies is called Glen Veagh. On our way to it, we went along a road parrallel to the River Lennan, and after about SKETCHES IN DONEGAL. LETTER II. TO THE REV. SIR F. L. B -SSE. THE Lake of Garton, to which I brought you in my last letter, last letter, is one of the finest of those numerous sheets of water which are interspersed through the vallies and mountains of this highland district; either in the midst of the mountains, forming the sources of rivers, or in the lowland vallies, expanding as their receptacles or reservoirs. High or low, small or large, they form interesting objects for the tourist; and I am not sure whether in this way our Irish lake may not be found as worthy of a visit as one in Cumberland, or Scotland, or even Switzerland. The lake is of considerable extent, its shores are ornamented with some timber, and a few gentlemen's seats; a very pretty parsonage reposes in a peninsula, and to the west and south the mountains extend in elevated ranges-beyond the lake I was shown an ancient ruin, said to be a church of St. Columkill; and a stone was described to me as a spot of peculiar sanctity and a place of ancient veneration and worship, to which, in old times, thousands of pilgrims used to flock-but it has fallen into disuse, and Doune Well has carried away almost all its votaries. The stone, the subject of veneration, is flat, and has four holes or cavities on its surface, which are said to be the marks of the hands and knees of Ethne, the mother of Columkill, who, large with child, was told by an old Druid, that she never would bring her son to the birth, till she came and knelt on this stone. So leaving the house of her princely father, the descendant of Nial of the Nine Hostages, she traversed the mountains of Tyrconnel until she came hither, and here taken in |