“We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the world. God bless Pumlummon Mawr!” said he, looking with reverence towards the hill. “I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is the good crown I have got by showing gentlefolks, like yourself, to the top of him.”
“You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the great Plynlimmon,” said I; “where are the small ones?”
“Yonder they are,” said the guide, pointing to two hills towards the north—“one is Plynlimmon Canol, and the other Plynlimmon Bach. The middle and the small Plynlimmon.”
“Pumlummon,” said I, “means five summits. You have pointed out only three—now, where are the other two?”
“Those two hills which we have just passed make up the five. However, I will tell your worship that there is a sixth summit. Don’t you see that small hill connected with the big Pumlummon, on the right?”
“I see it very clearly,” said I.
“Well, your worship, that’s called Bryn y Llo—the Hill of the Calf, or the Calf Plynlimmon, which makes the sixth summit.”
“Very good,” said I, “and perfectly satisfactory. Now let us ascend the Big Pumlummon.”
In about a quarter of an hour we reached the summit of the hill, where stood a large carn or heap of stones. I got up on the top and looked around me.
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.