David Cox did not live to see his beloved Bettws overrun by artists and excursionists and exploited to the nth degree. It remained unspotted from the world. To those who only know the Bettws of to-day, and see the railway station and the hundreds of excursionists that pour out of it on every summer afternoon, it is incredible that a visitor who, like some exploring Columbus, or Livingstone, at the least of it, stumbled upon the place in 1855, at the close of the great struggle in the Crimea, should have found the villagers quite ignorant of there having been any war. To-day things are very different. Hotels, boarding-houses, lodging-houses, and cyclists’ rests, with a sprinkling of shops where photographs and guide-books are sold, occupy the whole street; and when lunch-time and the dinner-hour are come, the scent of other people’s meals wafted down the road is quite oppressive.
But let it not be thought that Bettws is spoilt. It is only changed. If no longer unsophisticated, it is yet delightful, and if the houses are all new, they are at least either in good taste, or, at the worst, inoffensive. And, after all, the glorious scenery remains. The artists, however, are gone to Trefriw, a village down the Conway, as yet untamed and unbroken to the harness of convention. Time was when one could not stir out of doors at Bettws without upsetting an easel. Passing a wall, you would be startled by a fellow with long hair and a velvet jacket, and with a portfolio under his arm, jumping over it; looking down a lane, many easels would be seen there; a glance at the rocks of Pont-y-Pair would reveal sketch-books and pencils busily at work; and wandering, hand in hand with your Aminta in the shady bye-ways, you would not find the seclusion that such romantic occasions demand.
Other times, other manners. The amateur photographer is now in possession of Bettws. That central spot, the very hub of the place, the bridge over the Llugwy—called Pont-y-Pair, or the “Bridge of the Cauldron,” in allusion to the seething water falling over the rocks—is the favoured shooting-ground, and all day long the excursionists who bask picturesquely on the sunny stones are the victims of snapshotters, or with their own cameras pick off the sharpshooters on the bridge. Under such a terrific cross-fire as this few can hope to escape.
PONT-Y-PAIR.
XLV
The two miles leading from Bettws along the Holyhead Road to Rhaiadr-y-Wennol, or the “Swallow Falls,” conduct upwards, out of the hole in whose kindly shelter Bettws lies. Along this somewhat tiring incline a long procession of sight-seers may be seen toiling every day, from April to October, at any time between eight a.m. and seven in the evening, for the Falls have always been considered one of the sights best worth seeing in Wales, and even the Holyhead Mail used to pull up for five minutes to allow passengers to see them. They obtain their pretty name only, it is sad to reflect, by error, in an old confusion of “Wennol,” the Welsh word for “swallow,” with “Ewynol,” which means “foaming,” and is therefore a description merely Saxon in its unimaginative matter-of-fact. To those who would compare the Swallow Falls with Niagara or Alpine waterfalls, with intent to disparage this beautiful spot, we need have nothing to say. Let it be sufficient that these foaming waters, overhung with rocks and fantastically-rooted trees, are sufficiently lovely. The Falls are so close to the road as to be readily seen from it, between the trunks of the little fir plantation that intervenes, while their roaring can be heard far away. They begin with a tumbled race of the Llugwy between scattered rocks, developing into three distinct steps or falls, followed by a long slide. These masses of water, flung riotously upon one another, produce a curiously beautiful effect on the river immediately below, the element being so thoroughly aerated that for many yards onward it is full of air-bubbles as brilliant as the sparklets in champagne or mineral waters. The Swallow Falls have, of course, their legend. Beneath them is supposed to lie the spirit of Sir John Wynn, of Gwydyr, a canny baronet of the early seventeenth century, who was so “shrewd and successful in his dealings” that his Welsh neighbours, rightly or wrongly, thought him enriched by foul means at their expense. Accordingly, here his unhappy shade was sent “to be punished, purged, spouted upon, and purified from the foul deeds done in his days of nature.” According to latest advices, it is here yet, “damned moist, unpleasant.” If all erring shades were banished to such situations, it is to be feared there would not be waterfalls sufficient to go round; but, indeed, it is to a roomier and a drier place that they are generally thought to be consigned.
THE SWALLOW FALLS. From an Old Print.
The Llugwy, more and more a mountain stream as we proceed, borders the road, on one side or the other, as far as Capel Curig. Half a mile beyond the Swallow Falls, it is crossed at Ty-Hyll bridge, and is thenceforward on the left-hand. The road still ascends, crosses a wild tract with an ancient fir-crowned tumulus, and comes steeply up to Pont-y-Cyfyng and the Cyfyng Falls, a pretty scene, among scrub oaks and silver birches, with one of Telford’s happily placed little alcoves, for the amateurs of the picturesque, built out from the breastwork protecting the road.