the new road, which presently joins that leading to Bangor, I came to the Waterloo Bridge, consisting of a single arch of cast-iron, upwards of one hundred feet in span; there is an inscription on the main rib, which informs the passer-by that it was erected the same year the battle of Waterloo was fought. Thence I strolled over some meadows and along a footpath to the spot where the Llugwy joins its impetuous waters with those of the Conway; and then along the banks of the former, until I came in sight of the venerable old bridge called Pont y Pair, or the Bridge of the Cauldron. This bridge, built on four or five arches, which are fixed on projecting rocks, presents a very picturesque appearance— particularly after heavy rains, when the stream rolls with impetuosity among the rocks, and over the large stones which form the bed of the river. Now, however, it was comparatively tranquil. Stillness prevailed around, save the rippling of the water; the opposite mountain throwing its sombre shade over the surrounding objects.

B2

CHAPTER XV.

FONT ABERGLASSLYN, PENMORFA, CRICAETH, HARLECH, MAENTWROG, TAN Y BWLCH.

NOR can the tortured wave here find repose:

But raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts;
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course and lessen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals at last
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.

Thomson.

LEAVING with regret the romantic vale of the Llugwy, and the no less interesting vicinity of Bettws y Coed, I once more bent my steps through the Snowdon hills, and along the noble road I have already described, anxious, on my route towards Merionethshire, to catch one farewell glance of my favourite Beddgelert, and the wild scenery round Aberglasslyn.

On my way to the bridge, my attention was directed to the stone mentioned by Pennant, and known as the seat of the poet of whom I have before spoken,—the patriot Rhys Gôch, contemporary with the great Owen Glendower. It is part of a wanderer's creed to put faith in traditions of this kind; and I could easily picture to myself the gifted descendant of the house of Hafod pursuing his accustomed solitary walk towards this his beloved retreat, where, seated under the roof of heaven, surrounded by the stern majesty of nature in her darkest, loneliest, or loveliest moods, he poured forth those bold, pathetic hymns which nerved his countrymen to fresh deeds of honour against their oppressors. Among his other productions, not the least pleasant and full of meaning, is that happy satire on the villain fox, who devoured his favourite peacock. It holds forth

'an o'er true moral,' with flashes of humour, a covert wisdom mingled with gentle thoughts and sympathies, reminding one at times even of our patriarch Chaucer. He died towards the close of the fifteenth century, after narrowly escaping the vengeance of the English, who pursued him from hill to hill and from cave to cave, but he at last found rest among his beloved haunts at Beddgelert.

The approach to the bridge which connects Caernarvonshire with Merionethshire is wonderfully striking-in some points of view, sublime and terrific. The road+ where the view first bursts upon the eye in all its varied and extraordinary features, by its bleak, barren aspect, overhung by huge precipices and broken rocks stretching far into the distance, well prepares the mind for those impressions which, on whatever side approached, by day or by moonlight, as Bingley so enthusiastically describes it, never fail to call forth the admiration of the coldest traveller. All the milder features of landscape are here lost in the sublime and terrible; instead of the softer interchange of hill, and lake, and glen, the grandeur of the whole scene, breaking suddenly on the eye, at once arrests and employs the imagination.

From the spot whence I contemplated the chasm, rose craggy cliffs, beetling eight hundred feet above, and huge rocks of most capricious forms,―here bright, there flinging their shadows deep as night upon the black waters, which plunging at first in flashing eddies afterwards form a broad, translucent torrent. The eye almost recoils from the vast projecting precipice, which seems to

* Pont Aberglasslyn has been more than once mistaken by the tourist for Pont ar Monach, or the Devil's Bridge, in Cardiganshire,—a curious arch extending across a much narrower and deeper chasm. Mr. Bingley thus observes that he had expected to see an arch thrown across a deep narrow vale, hanging as it were in mid air; but was disappointed to find it a bridge very little out of the usual form!

+ This road, which so late as Mr. Pennant's visit, was a mere horsepath, after being formed with incredible labour, has lately been sufficiently widened to permit carriages to pass each other, and is bounded on the lower side by a stone wall. In the structure of the bridge there is nothing extraordinary; it consists of a wide stone arch, of thirty feet chord, thrown over a raving torrent, and projected from two perpendicular precipices.

threaten destruction to the narrow ridge upon which I was then standing, and which is close to the brink of the flood. Not a feature of landscape was wanting to complete the mournful charm of the hour and the spot. The gathering twilight giving broader masses to the rude rocks, soaring in succession above bolder cliffs, here piled tier upon tier, and again broken by the huge serpentine chasm,-with the wild wooded scene,—the sounding cataract, -the bright river, and the deep green glen stretched far below,recalled to mind some of the boldest Alpine scenery that ever inspired the genius of the painter, or the gloomy joy of the robber chief.

"The disjointed crags,

O'er the steep precipice in fragments vast
Impending, to the astonished mind recall
The fabled horrors, by demoniac force

Of Lapland wizards wrought, who borne upon

The wirldwind's wing, what time the vex'd sea dashed

Against Norwegia's cliffs, to solid mass

Turned the swoll'n billows, and the o'erhanging waves

Fix'd ere they fell.'

With deference to the learned translator of Giraldus, there is reason to believe this must have been the spot where several of the princes of Meirion's people received from Archbishop Baldwin the sign of the cross, and this extraordinary pass the scenery, that induced the monk to observe that the territory of Conan, particularly Merionyth, is the rudest district of all Wales; the ridges of its mountains are very high, ending in sharp peaks, and so irregularly jumbled together, that if the shepherds conversing together from their summits should agree to meet, they could scarcely effect their purpose in a whole day.''

It is through the ravine below that the river, at times broad and rapid, (formed by the junction of two streams, springing from the lakes on the south-west side of Snowdon,) comes thundering with

*Hoare's Giraldus.