Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/138

 grandest, we thought with regret that you should have been turned back from the very threshold of such glorious scenery, and by so melancholy a cause; but we shall meet again in Donegal, and end the tour another day. O'Hagan's journal ought to be good, for he spends a good deal of time writing it. He has turned out a capital mountaineer, and will tell you of strange passages that he and I have gone through amongst the hills: how we walked twenty-five miles through woods and morasses one day, and were at last benighted about fifteen miles from any shelter, in the midst of a pathless wood that stands now as wild and shaggy and savage, as it was one thousand years ago; how we struggled on all night, having fortunately moonlight, and not liking to lie down to sleep in the wood, inasmuch as we were wet to the bone; how, towards morning, we reached the hotel, weary, wet, and famished with hunger, &c., &c. In short, I have good hopes of making a tourist of him yet if he survive my instructions.

"Poor Martin has had a good deal of illness, but has pushed on gallantly. However, he was not out with us in the night adventure.

"I am hurrying home, and intend to be in Bannbridge on Tuesday, when I will work hard till I finish Aodh, and will carefully refer to my index expurgatorius of Carlylish phrases.

"We got the Nation yesterday, and simultaneously asked each other which of us was the enthusiastic gentleman referred to in 'Answers to Correspondents,' who requires his letters to be addressed to the Merman of the Rosses, and Roaring Meg. We approve highly,all of us, of 'Our Correspondent's' account of the Enniskillen meeting, and disapprove of giving so much good language to the treacherous Evening Mail.

"The other two are going to complete this letter, and will doubtless give you some valuable information and instruction, which you will receive with high respect. Very truly yours, "."

", I must write my name upon this paper as one of the Co. of tourists. We have had delightful climb-