The jagged walls of rock which in many places sank perpendicularly to the pass, are a good exercise for heads subject to giddiness. I gradually ascended many considerable peaks of the same kind, and found only an enjoyment the more in the slight shudder which my perilous station excited. “L’émotion du danger plait à l’homme,” says Madame de Staël. My solitude was not complete. The mountain sheep which I have already mentioned, much smaller than the ordinary breeds, wild and agile as the chamois, often bounded before me like roes, and in their flight leaped down crags and precipices where it would not have been easy for any one to follow them. The wool of these sheep is as remarkable for coarseness, as their flesh for tenderness and delicacy. The London ‘gourmands’ set a high value upon it, and maintain that a man who has not eaten roast mutton from Snowdon has no conception of the ideal in that kind.
I came almost into collision with a large bird of prey, which hovering slowly with out-spread wings, had fixed his eyes so intently on something beneath, and had so little calculated on making my acquaintance in this impracticable path, that I could almost have seized him with my hands before he perceived me. He darted away with the velocity of an arrow, but did not for a moment lose sight of the object of his eager pursuit; and I saw him for a long time like a point, poised in the blue ether, till the sun sunk behind the surrounding mountain.
I now endeavoured to reach the hut at which I had before stopped, in as straight a line as possible. Not far from it a girl was milking her cow, which afforded me a refreshing draught. Here too I found my guide, and thankfully availed myself of his services during the rest of my way, wrapt in my cloak and resting most luxuriously on my sure-footed ‘poney.’ After returning to my inn and changing my clothes, I set out afresh and embarked on the lake, now splendidly burnished with the glow of evening. The air was become mild and soft; fish leaped sportively from the water, and herons wheeled their graceful flight around the sedgy shores; while here and there a fire gleamed upon the mountains, and the heavy thunder of blasted rocks resounded from the distant quarries.
Long had the moon’s sickle stood aloft in the deep blue heavens, when the dark-locked Hebe welcomed me back to Caernarvon.
July 21st.
I was still somewhat fatigued by my yesterday’s expedition, and contented myself with a walk to the celebrated castle built by Edward I. the conqueror of Wales, and destroyed by Cromwell. It is one of the most magnificent ruins in England. The only thing to regret is, that it stands so near the town, and not in solitary grandeur amid the mountains. The outer walls, although in ruins, still form an unbroken line, enclosing nearly three acres of ground. The interior space, overgrown with grass and filled with rubbish and with thistles, is nearly eight hundred paces long. It is surrounded by seven slender but strong towers, of different forms and sizes. One of them may still be ascended, and I climbed by a crumbling staircase of a hundred and forty steps to its platform, whence I enjoyed a magnificent view over sea, mountains, and town. On descending, my guide showed me the remains of a vaulted chamber, in which, according to tradition, Edward II., the first prince of Wales, was born. The Welsh, in consequence of the oppression of English governors in the earlier times of partial and momentary conquest, had declared to the king that they would obey none but a prince of their own nation. Edward therefore sent for his wife Eleanor in the depth of winter that she might lie-in in Caernarvon castle. She bore a prince: upon which the king summoned the nobles and chiefs of the land, and asked them solemnly whether they would submit to the rule of a prince who was born in Wales, and could not speak a word of English. On their giving a joyful and surprised assent, he presented to them his new-born son, exclaiming in broken Welsh, Eich dyn! i. e. “This is your man!” which has been corrupted into the present motto of the English arms, Ich Dien.
Over the great gate still stands the statue of Edward, with a crown on his head and a drawn dagger in his right hand, as if after six centuries he were still guarding the crumbling walls of his castle. He might justly have broken out into indignant complaint at the desecration I witnessed. In the midst of these majestic ruins, a camel and some monkeys in red jackets were performing their antics, while a ragged multitude stood shouting and laughing around, unconscious of the wretched contrast which they formed with these solemn remains of past ages.
The tower in which the prince was born is called the Eagle Tower; not from that circumstance, but from four colossal eagles which crowned its pinnacles, one of which is still remaining. It is believed to be Roman, for Caernarvon stands on the site of the ancient Segontium, which.... But I am wandering too far, and am in the high road to fall into the tone of a tour-writer by profession, who thinks himself privileged to bore if he does not instruct, although his information is generally the result of a weary search through road-books and local descriptions. ‘Je n’ai pas cette prétension, vous le savez, je laisse errer ma plume,’ heedless whither it leads me.
The Marquis of Anglesea has lately established a sea-bath here, which is supplied by a steam-engine, and very elegantly fitted up. I availed myself of it on my way back from the castle, and observed in the entertaining-room a billiard-table of metal set in stone. It is impossible to desire one more accurate;—whether the steam-engine performed the office of marking, I forgot to ask. This is by no means impossible, in a country in which somebody has gravely proposed to establish steam-waiters in coffee-houses, and in which affairs would go on much the same if a forty-horsepower steam-engine sat upon the throne.
Dear Julia, a traveller must be allowed to speak often and much of weather and of eating. The Novels of the Illustrious, erst Unknown, or the Illustrious Unknown, derive no inconsiderable part of their attractions from the masterly pictures of this kind they contain. Whose mouth does not water when he sees Dalgetty, the soldier of fortune, display at the table a prowess even greater than in the fight? I am really not in joke when I assure you that when I have lost my appetite, I often read an hour or two in the works of the Great Unknown, and find it completely restored. To-day I wanted no stimulus of this or any kind. It was sufficient to see the most excellent fresh fish and the far-famed ‘mountain mutton’ smoking on the table, to induce me to fall on them with ravenous hunger; for a sea-bath and the ascent of Snowdon have a yet greater influence on the stomach than Walter Scott. My dark-locked maiden, who, as I was the only guest in the house, waited on me herself, was at length impatient of my reiterated attacks on the mutton; and said somewhat sullenly that I did nothing but eat, except when I was rambling about. She was of a much more ethereal nature, and in the short time I had been here, had read through half my portable Novel library. Every time I saw her she presented me with a newly devoured volume, and begged so earnestly for another, that I must have had a hard heart to refuse her.