“A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, a waste of russet-coloured hills, with here and there a black, craggy summit. No signs of life or cultivation were to be discovered, and the eye might search in vain for a grove, or even a single tree. The scene would have been cheerless in the extreme had not a bright sun lighted up the landscape.
“‘This does not seem to be a country of much society,’ I said to my guide.
“‘It is not, sir. The nearest house is the inn we came from, which is now three miles behind us. Straight before you there is not one for at least ten, and on either side it is a wilderness to a vast distance. Plynlimmon is not a sociable country, sir; nothing to be found in it, but here and there a few sheep or a shepherd.’
“‘Now,’ said I, descending from the cairn, ‘we will proceed to the sources of the rivers’ (the Severn, the Wye, and the Rheidol). The source of the Rheidol is a small, beautiful lake, about a quarter of a mile in length. It is overhung on the east and north by frightful crags, from which it is fed by a number of small rills. The water is of the deepest blue, and of very considerable depth. The banks, except to the north and east, slope gently down, and are clad with soft and beautiful moss. The river, of which it is the head, emerges at the south-eastern side, and brawls away in the shape of a considerable brook amidst moss and rushes down a wild glen to the south. If few rivers have a more wild and wondrous channel than the Rheidol, fewer still have a more beautiful and romantic source.
“After kneeling down and drinking freely of the lake, I followed my guide over a hill into a valley, at the farther end of which I saw a brook streaming to the south.
“‘That brook,’ said the guide, ‘is the young Severn.’
“The brook came from round the side of a very lofty rock, singularly variegated, black and white, the northern summit presenting somewhat the appearance of the head of a horse. Passing round this crag, we came to a fountain, surrounded with rushes, out of which the brook, now exceedingly small, came murmuring.
“‘The crag above,’ said my guide, ‘is called the Rock of the Horse, and this spring at its foot is generally called the Source of the Severn. However, drink not of it, master, for the source is higher up. Follow me.’
“I followed him up a steep and very narrow dingle. Presently we came to some beautiful little pools of water in the turf, which is here remarkably green.