Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/340

 3^6 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1758.

their fat becomes a kind of rich marble, cloathed with ever-green marrow, in a very fhort time. The fhrubs, grov'/ing out of the crevices more flefliy parts are in a manner of the rocics. Some of the iflands marbled with fat, but their tallow in the upper lake are of fuch altur is too foft to make candles, tho' it pendens height, that they refemblc, is proper enough for foap. On the at a dillance, fo many lofty towers eaft fide of the illand, the walls of ftanding in the water, and being an old chapel have been lately re- many of them crowned with paired by fome gentlemen, who wreaths of arbutus, reprefent the frequently ufe it as a banqueting- ruins of {lately palaces. Their houfe. There are bcfides timber edges are fo much worn by the trees, the remains of feveral fruir dalhing of the water againft their trees, as plumbs, pears, &c. which fides, and by frequent rainswafhing liave outlived the defclation that away the earth, and time hath fo hath feized on the cells of thofe disjointed many of the marblerccks, reclufes who firft planted them, that feveral of them hang in a moil Many of thefe trees had fruit ripe furprifing and tottering manner, on them when I was in the ifland ; and reprefent a rude kind of con- the plumbs in particular, being of fufed architecture, almo.1 without a large red kind, were very fine, foundations. In others of them. Here are alfo the fruit of the the waters have worn pafTages fuffi- forbus or fervice tree, likewife the ciently large for boats to go through arbuius, and other fhrubs, which thefe tottering arches, which in were all planted by the monk?, fome places (though they are of an tho' the neighbouring inhabitants immenfe weight) are only upheld will have them to be the fpontane- by very flender pillars, ous produfticn of the foil. In The arbutus which cloaths thefe ihort, it is a beautiful, romantic iil;inds, gives even the haggard wildernefs, decorated, at prefent, winter the beautiful appearance of with thefe plantations, and its fpring, for in that melancholy venerable ruins, which are nofmall feafon, this tree puts on its higheit addition to the beauties of Lough- bloom : which rarely growing in Jane. Rabbit-Iiland llands to the o;her places, is more likely to be •weft of Innis-fallen, and is chiefly admired by ftrangers in this. The remarkable for its quarries of good preparation of charcoal, for the iron lime-ftone. An inlinite 'v^mberof works, hath been the occaficn of a iflands of a fmaller fize, fpangle great deltruftion of this beautiful and adorn this lake, mi ft of which tree in other parts of the country : are covered v.'ith the arbutus, and and it is faid, that even here, it feveral other be.iutiful fhrubs. One fuffered much by an accidental fire of them, from a fancied reprefenta- that laid wafte a great part of a tion, refembles, at fome ^^iftance, foreft. Its growth, upon rocks of the figure of an horfe, in a drinking marble, v.'here noearth appears, and pofture; another is called O-Dona- fo high above the furlace of the ghee's prifon ; and a th'rd his water, renders it a matter of both garden. Molt of them are of furprize and pleafure •.

This

• The nrbutus, faith Sir Thomas Molineux, (in the Philofophical Tranfac-

f iors. No, 217) is not to be found any wlieie, of fpontancous growth, nearer