About twelve miles north of Barmouth the picturesque Harlech Castle stands on a promontory guarding the entrance to the Traeth. The cliff is precipitous, with just enough level surface on the top to accommodate the castle. The place is a quadrangle, with massive round towers at the corners connected by lofty curtain-walls. Circular towers, protected by a barbican, guard the entrance on the land side. Deep ditches cut in the rock surround the castle where that defence is necessary. From this fortress on the Rock of Harlech the view is magnificent. This crag is said to have supported a castle as early as the third century, when Lady Bronwen built it, and, being of most sensitive honor, died afterwards of grief because her husband had struck her. Unhappily, she was in advance of her age in her demonstration of woman's rights. Another castle replaced the first one in the sixth century, and some of its ruins were worked into the present castle, which is another achievement of the great Welsh fortress-builder, Edward I. It has stood several sieges. Owen Glendower held it five years against the English. When Edward IV. became king, Harlech still held out for the Lancastrian party, the redoubtable Welshman, David ap Ifon, being the governor. Summoned to surrender, the brave David replied, "I held a town in France till all the old women in Wales heard of it, and now I will hold a castle in Wales till all the old women in France hear of it." But David was starved into surrender, and then Edward IV. tried to break the terms of capitulation made by Sir Richard Pembroke, the besieger. Sir Richard, more generous, told the king, "Then, by Heaven, I will let David and his garrison into Harlech again, and Your Highness may fetch him out by any who can, and if you demand my life for his, take it." The song of "The March of the Men of Harlech" is a memorial of this siege. Harlech was the last Welsh fortress during the Civil Wars that held out for Charles I., and since then it has been gradually falling to decay.
HARLECH CASTLE.
We have now conducted the tourist to the chief objects in North Wales. The railway runs on to Holyhead, built on the extreme point of Holy Island on the western verge of Anglesea, where there is a fine harbor of refuge, lighthouses, and an excellent port. Here comes the "Wild Irishman," as the fast train is called that runs between London and Ireland, and its passengers are quickly transferred to the swift steamers that cross the Channel to Dublin harbor. Lighthouses dot the cliffs on the coast, and at this romantic outpost we will close the survey of North Wales.
"There ever-dimpling Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak,
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
Those Edens of the Western wave."
II.
LIVERPOOL, NORTHWARD TO THE SCOTTISH BORDER.
Lancashire—Warrington—Manchester—Furness Abbey—The Ribble—Stonyhurst—Lancaster Castle—Isle of Man—Castletown—Rushen Castle—Peele Castle—The Lake Country—Windermere—Lodore Fall—Derwentwater—Keswick—Greta Hall—Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge—Skiddaw—The Border Castles—Kendal Castle—Brougham Hall—The Solway—Carlisle Castle—Scaleby Castle—Naworth—Lord William Howard.