On the 22nd Leach and myself ascended Gheran Tuel82 the highest mountain in the Neighbourhood. D[illwyn] was not quite well and did not accompany us. We rose at four, but the people about us were not very punctual and we did not set off till past 5. The inn we were at was Coffee's — where there is on the part of Miss Coffee who has the management the greatest attention, civility & desire to oblige. I may add the greatest and most indefatigable activity but there is no method & no order & the inn consequently is not a comfortable one. I do not imagine that the other Inns here are better in this respect. They are probably worse in others & a second visit to Killarney would therefore [p. 51] lead me again to Miss Coffey's.
We went on three horses — one for each of us and one for our guide. At the bridge at Dunloh our guide took up another man behind him to show him the way. We passed near the Castle and bending to the right directed our course towards a deep hollow at the foot of the mountain where we arrived at last rather with our horses than on them for the latter part of our way (road there was none) was so rocky and so boggy that both Leach and myself preferred walking. We soon arrived at a Mountain pool of which I could not learn the name83 — it abounds with Isoetes lacustris and with a variety of Potamogeton natans84 having leaves whose length is about 4 times their width.
[p. 52] A sort of Valley of moderate ascent continues from the pool. In the valley above the pool we gathered Saxifraga hirsuta but it does not grow high up the mountain. Higher up we met with Rhodiola rosea, Rumex digynus85, Asplenium viride86, Cyathea fragilis87 and Saxifraga hirta88 of English Botany which was at first I believe called adscendens by Mackay.
Saxifraga umbrosa89 is very abundant & grows on the very summit of the mountain.