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42
MUNSTER
and in another minute she was out and away, crack-
ing on full sail with a good
half-hour's lead before
the revenue boat could beat out of the narrow sound
to chase her.
From Coomakista the road descends steeply to
Waterville, a famous place for anglers, where a new
town has grown up about the outlet to Lough Cur-
rane,
for here is now the chief station of the trans-
atlantic cables. The first of these cables was laid
from Valentia Island some ten miles farther north
opposite the town of Cahirciveen, which will be your
destination if you purpose to return by rail along the
shore of Dingle Bay. But I commend to all, motorist,
cyclist, or foot traveller (if
such a one be left in these
degenerate days), another way of exploring Iveragh.
Also, if the sea is not your enemy,
to stay
it is worth while
in Waterville where the sea as well as the
lake offer great chance to fishers and try an expe-
dition to the Skellig Rocks. Fine weather is needed,
for there is difficulty in landing on these astonishing
places where the gannets
are the chief habitants:
strong flyers, they nest nowhere between this point
and the Bass Rock in Scotland, yet you may see them
by dozens anywhere along the west coast even in the
breeding season. On the Skelligs are old stone stairs
of tremendous height, the work of old-time anchorite
monks who established themselves here in stone