Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Travels of Joseph Woods, Architect and Botanist, in 1809 (Author: Joseph Woods)
entry 34
The next morning was as wet as the preceding afternoon had been, so that seeing very little prospect of being able to ascend the pins I began my return to Galway. My hostess took the money I gave her without looking at it & expressed her sorrow that she could not afford to entertain strangers without being paid for it. The first part of the way was over a wet bog by no means flat at the head of Glan Inock.159 This bog was called a mountain in the instructions given to my guide. Glan Inoch is a wild valley containing a considerable lake160 whose [p. 137] islands are covered with wood & embosomed in magnificent mountains. Those to the south are the pins of Ballynabola161 on the North are what appear in Taylor's map162 to be called the Mamturk mountains but which if I understood right are known in the country by the name of Maum Crocoloum.163 At the foot of these we stopped at a village (such as I had seen the day before) to enquire our road & entered a hut where there were I suppose a dozen young men. The silence and gravity of the party put me in mind of what we are told of the meetings of the North American Indians. I crossed these mountains by ? what in Cumberland would be called a hawse164.
p.40
A long winding descent brought us into Glan Glosh165 (the Green Valley). It is wider than Glan Hohy and the slopes are less even. It opens into another Valley, Glan Ross,166 which stretches if my information be correct from Lough Corrib to the sea shore.167 [p. 138] We continued along the valley to Lough Corrib the upper extremity of which is quite Landlocked and has the appearance of a small detached lake. One hill on its Northern shore is covered with wood.168 We crossed it in a ferry boat with a large hole in the bottom stopped up by a sod, the fragment of a broken oar on one side & a crooked branch of oak to supply the place of one on the other. We soon got into the road by which we had approached Dericlare and slept at a cottage about two miles from Oughterard. A conspicuous object in this part of the country is the mountain of Firmnamore. The top is flat, of considerable, extent, and it[s] hollows retain the latest snow in the year. The country people tell you of a city on the top of it, the marks of whose paved streets are still distinctly visible crossing each other at right angles and the quern stones provided for the inhabitants to grind their corn have long supplied all the wants of the district. The City however was never built. After paving the [p. 139] streets and providing the Hand mills the founder changed his mind and built his city at Galway.