The seclusion of Llanberis has been broken by the formation of a new line of road along Llyn Padarn to the town of Caernarvon, and the charms of its solitude dissipated by the erection of two spacious inns in the immediate vicinity of the ancient castle.
To scenes like these, a tale of wonder is a welcome introduction; it awakes the mind, and adds new interest to every rock and precipice. The melancholy fate of little John Closs, who was overtaken by a mist, and perished in the snows upon Moel Eilio, calls forth a tear, but excites no wonder. The feats of Margaret uch Evan, though very singular, are as certainly well attested: she dwelt near the margin of the lower lake, and was the last specimen of the strength and spirit of the ancient Briton. Her biographer asserts that “she was the greatest hunter, fisher, shooter of her time: she kept a dozen of dogs, terriers, greyhounds, and spaniels, all excellent in their kind. She killed more foxes in one year than all the confederate hunts did in ten: rowed stoutly, and was queen of the lakes: fiddled excellently, and was acquainted with all the old British music: was also a good joiner: and at the age of seventy years, was so expert a wrestler, that few young men dared try a fall with her. She was a blacksmith, shoemaker, and manufacturer of harps. She shod her own horses, made her own shoes, and built her own boats while under contract to convey the copper ore down the lakes. Contemporary bards celebrated her praises in strains purely British. She gave her hand, at length, to the most effeminate of her suitors, as if determined to exert that physical superiority which nature had bestowed on her even in the married state. Foulk Jones, of Ty Dû, was also a person of singular powers; the tales related of his prowess recall the poet’s character of Entellus.
—“he then confronts the bull,
And on his ample forehead, aiming fall,
The deadly stroke descending, pierced the skull.Ӯneid, v. 666.
The pass of Nant Peris is entered by a gap called Bwlch y Gwyddol; [58a] tremendous rocks impend on either side in masses of gray crag, the long shattered ridge of Snowdon on the one hand, and the broken forms of Glydyr fawr on the other. These rocks are overlooked again by still more awful mountains, that fall in abrupt lines and close up the vista, except where they are commanded by some peak of Snowdon or its opposing rival. Images of desolation and of stupendous greatness compose the scene. A solitary cottage disturbs the retirement; and sometimes the shepherd’s shrill call, in “the office of his mountain watch,” is heard repeated among the rocks of the “Blue Vale.” [58b] Some distance up the pass a huge stone, which does not appear to have been an appendage of the mountain, but rather an independent erection, lies across the centre of the defile. A hollow beneath it was once converted by a poor woman into a summer habitation, for the convenience of tending her little flock. It exceeds the dimensions of the Boother stone [59] in Westmoreland; and the spot on which it rests is called, from the story of the poor herdswoman, “Ynys Hettys,” or Betty’s Island. The scenery decreases in magnificence as the highest point or resting-place (Gorphwysffa) is attained, where new and different beauties burst upon the sight, in the view down the Bwlch Eisteddffau into the enchanting vale of Gwynant.
Accomplishing the passage of the “Blue Vale” was amongst the great boasts of Cambrian tourists: if the reward was great, so were the difficulties of the task.
“If the path be dangerous known,
The danger’s self is lure alone,”
might then have been the adopted motto of the inquisitive tourist, but now the wheels of a stage-coach, in mimickry of the revolutions of time and of events, roll rapidly over the Gorphwysffa itself, that spot where the way-worn traveller paused to take a congratulating retrospect of the difficulties he had passed.
DENBIGHSHIRE.
The largest, most wealthy, and populous shire in North Wales. Its form is irregular; the greatest length from north to south extends forty miles, and the mean breadth is calculated at twenty-three. The area occupies a surface exceeding four hundred thousand acres. It presents a front of a few miles length to the Irish sea. Parts of Flint, Cheshire, and Shropshire form the eastern boundary; Merioneth and Montgomeryshires the south; and it is joined on the west by the county of Caernarvon. The surface presents an endless variety, and may be illustrated by the idea of an island whose shores are peopled and cultivated, while the interior is comparatively in a state of natural wildness. The vales of Llanrwst, the Abergelle line of coast, the fertile vale of Clwyd, represent the fringe of cultivation which surrounds an elevated though improvable district of many thousand acres. With the exception of the Dee and Conway, which form natural county bounds on the east and west, the rivers of Denbigh are inconsiderable. The mean elevation of the interior district, extending from Bettws-Abergele to Derwen, and from Denbigh to the Gwytherin hills; is about eight hundred feet above sea level. Several small pools are found amongst the hills, possessing neither great extent nor much natural beauty; and, being collected in the highest regions, they are devoid of those accompaniments which give such picturesque effects to those lakes that are deposited in deep and hollow valleys. Cairn y Brain, between Llangollen and Llandegle, is the highest point in Denbighshire, reaching one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight feet above the sea; and Llyn Conway is the largest assemblage of waters. The county of Denbigh, under the late Reform Bill, sends two members to parliament; the united boroughs of Denbigh, Rhuthyn, Holt, and Wrexham return one.
