withdrawal of the waters, the waves falling and ever falling, till all
the hills come forth again, and the salt tides roll and ripple away from
the valleys, leaving their faces for the winds to dry; let this go on
till the land once more takes its familiar form, and you will easily
call up the visible image of the whole.

As you stand in the midst of the land, where first lay the channel of
open sea, you will have, on your northern horizon, the beginning of a
world of purple-outlined hills, outliers of the northern mountain
region, which covers the upper third of the island. On all sides about
you, from the eastern sea to the western ocean, you will have the great
central plain, dappled with lakes and ribbed with silver rivers, another
third of the island. Then once more, to the south, you will have a
region of hills, the last third of Ireland, in size just equal to the
northern mountains or the central plain.

The lines of the northern hills begin with the basalt buttresses of
Antrim and the granite ribs of Down, and pass through northern Ulster
and Connacht to the headlands of Mayo and Galway. Their rear is held by
the Donegal ranges, keeping guard against the blackness of the
northern seas.

The plain opens from the verge of these hills; the waters that gather on
its pleasant pastures and fat fields, or among the green moss tracts of
its lowlands, flow eastward by the Boyne or southwestward by the Shannon
to the sea.

Then with the granite mountains of Dublin and Wicklow begin the southern
hills, stretching through south Leinster and Munster to the red
sandstone ridges of Cork and Kerry, our last vantage-ground against