Visit to North Wales sometimes 1000 29 down every rock-face feet. and the whole air alive with the roar of waters. The greenness and richness of the mountains after our dusty burnt-up plains, is most refreshing. All day we had steaming gleams; but the clouds on Glydyr Vawr only broke to form again, and we had twenty showers, shrouding the cliffs with long gray veils of lace. I wish I could tell you what color the mountains are. Not pink, not purple, not brown, but a sort of pale pink madder, with vast downs of bright green grass interspersed. And oh, as we walked past Colonel Pennant's cyclopean walls at Bangor, and saw that great gap high up in the air ten miles off, and knew that we should be in it ere noon, it was like a dream; and all the more dreamy for the sleeplessness of the past night. We found a noble fountain, which Colonel Pennant has built by the roadside, and there washed ourselves into our senses, and went on. At Bethesda we tried for breakfast, at six A. M., and were refused by all the few houses which were open, till we found a nice little woman, who gave us infinite broiled ham, tea, and porter, to carry up the hills. We tried Ogwen River for salmon peel, amid those exquisite parks and woods; but it was too much flooded. By night I had picked my first Saxifraga stellaris, and knew that I was in the former world. The parsley fern is growing between every stone, and the beech fern too, but the latter very poor. I have dried for the children the water-lobelia, and Sparganium natans, to do which I walked up to my knees in Idwal. Snowdon is now looking like a great gray ghost with seven heads, and as soon as one head is cut off a fresh one grows; but more are cut off than grow, and the clouds which stream up from the S. W. fall lower and lower, and have now canopied the whole head of Moel Siabod, who is looking in at our window 2000 feet down, the impudent fellow, though I am 1000 feet high. Wherefore we shall have more rain. . . . To-morrow up at six; walk to Pen-y-gwryd, and then up to Edno!" PEN-Y-GWRYD. "I have had, as far as scenery is concerned, the finest day I ever had. We started for Edno at 10, but did not find it till 2, because we mistook the directions, and walked from 10 till 1.30 over a Steinerer Maar, a sea of syenite and metamorphic slate which baffles all description, 2000 feet above Gywnant, ribs and peaks and walls of rock leaping up and rushing down, average 50 to 100 feet, covered with fir, club moss, crowberry and bearberry, and ling, of course. Over these we had to scramble up and down, beating for Edno lake as you would beat for a partridge, but in vain. All we found was one old cock-grouse, who went off holloaing' Cock-cock-what-a-shame-cock-cock' till we were fairly beat. In despair we made, not a dash, but a crawl, at Moel Meirch (Margaret's Peak,' some pathetic story, I suppose), which rises about 100 feet above the stony sea, a smooth pyramid of sandy-pink syenite. Hughes got up first, by a crack, for the walls are like china, and gave a who-whoop; there was Edno half a mile beyond, and only a valley to cross, beside a few climbs of 50 feet. So there we got, and ate our hardboiled eggs and drank our beer, and then set to, and caught just nothing. The fish, always sulky and capricious, would not stir. But the delight of being there again, 2200 feet up, out of the sound of aught but the rush of wind and water and the whistle of the sheep (which is just like a penny whistle ill-blown), and finding oneself at home there! Every rock, even the steps of slate and footholds of grass which * * and I used to use, just the same. Unchanged for ever. It is an awful thought. Soon we found out why the fish would n't rise. The cloud which had been hanging on Snowdon, lowered. Hebog and Cnicht caught it. It began to roll up from Visit to North Wales 31 the sea in great cabbage-headed masses, and grew as dark as twilight. The wind rolled the lake into foam; we staggered back to an old cave, where we shall sleep, please God, ere we come home, and then the cloud lowered, the lake racing along in fantastic flakes and heaps of white steam, hiding everything 50 yards off one minute, then leaving all clear and sharp-cut pink and green. While out of it came a rain of marbles and Minnié bullets a rain which searches, and drenches, and drills. Luckily I had on a flannel shirt. We waited as long as we dared, and then steered home by compass, for we could not see 50 yards, except great rows of giants in the fog, sitting humped up side by side, like the ghosts of the sons of Anak staring into the bogs. So home we went, floundering through morass, and scrambling up and down the giants, which were crags 50 to 100 feet high, for we dared not pick our road for fear of losing our bearings by compass. And we were wet oh, were we not wet? but, as a make-weight, we found the 'Grass of Parnassus' in plenty, and as we coasted the vale of Gwynant, 1500 feet up, the sight of Snowdon, sometimes through great gaps of cloud, sometimes altogether hidden, the lights upon that glorious vista of Gwynant and Dinas, right down to Hebog- the flakes of cloud rushing up the vale of Gwynant far below us no tongue can describe it. I could see Froude's fir-wood, and home-close, quite plain from Moel Meirch. It looked as if you could have sent a stone into it, but it was four miles off. I have got for you grass of Parnassus; Alpine club-moss; ladies' mantle; ivy-leaved campanula; beech fern; A. Oreopteris (sweet fern). The great butterwort is out of flower (as is the globe flower), but it stars every bog with its shiny yellow-green stars of leaves. Goodbye. I am up at half-past three for Gwynant, which is full of salmon. I have just got your dear letter. Tell Rose that I am drying all the plants I can for her. Tell Maurice I saw a grouse and a water-ouzel-lots of these last... When the short holiday came to an end, the three friends were asked by the landlord of the inn, at Pen-y-gwryd, to write their names in his visitors' book. They wrote as follows: TOM TAYLOR. I came to Pen-y-gwryd with colors armed and pencils, So in default of them I took to using knives and forks, CHARLES KINGSLEY. I came to Pen-y-gwryd in frantic hopes of slaying Grilse, Salmon, 3 lb. red-fleshed Trout, and what else there's no saying; But bitter cold and lashing rain, and black nor'eastern skies, sir, Drove me from fish to botany, a sadder man and wiser. TOM HUGHES. I came to Pen-y-gwryd a larking with my betters, A mad wag and a mad poet, both of them men of letters; Which two ungrateful parties, after all the care I 've took Of them, make me write verses in Henry Owen's book. T. T. We've been mist-soak'd on Snowdon, mist-soaked on Glyder Vawr, We've been wet through on an average every day three times an hour; We've walk'd the upper leathers from the soles of our balmorals; And as sketchers and as fishers with the weather have had our quarrels. |