The Mourne Mountains extend along the coast of Northern Ireland, from south of Belfast down to Strangford Lough, on the Irish Sea. C. S. Lewis, who was born in Belfast, visited them often as a boy and was inspired by their otherworldly beauty to invent Narnia–or so 'tis said, by some. I hitchhiked through them in the spring of 1972, on my way from Coleraine, where I was a student at the University of Ulster, to Dublin, where the Abbey Mooney was. (The Abbey Mooney, and Wynn's Hotel across the street, were my favorite pub and hotel in the world. Wynn's is still there, but the Mooney's gone.) One of my rides was with a religious fanatic who asked me if was ready to meet Jesus. Not quite yet, I said. Well, I am, he said, right now; and he pointed the car at a telephone pole and accelerated, yelling "Here I come, Lord," and swerving aside at the last minute. Well, one maneuver like that was enough for me, so I clutched my gut and put the old about-to-heave-all-over-you ploy into effect. It worked, thankfully. He let me out and sped off to his celestial kingdom of nutters, without a backward glance, at about 60 m.p.h. My next ride was with students I knew from Coleraine. We went about five miles, then stopped at a pub with a view of the Mournes and stayed there all afternoon, drinking Guinness at a picnic table outside and watching the sunlight chase the shadows across the verdant slopes of the mountains. I was in no hurry to get to Dublin. I was young.