“Hark how each giant oak and desert cave
Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!
O’er thee, O King, their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe,
Vocal no more.”
From Conway I proceeded to Llanrwst, thence to Bettws-y-Coed, which is situated in a lovely verdant cwm, and is the most charming and the most exquisitely beautiful spot I have ever beheld. I have seen many an enchanting scene, but Bettws-y-Coed is incomparably finer, and surpasses, both in magnificent boldness and soft and quiet grandeur, any other landscape upon which I have been permitted to gaze. As night was rapidly approaching, and as I had arranged to ascend Snowdon the following morning, I had to tear myself away from so enchanting a scene. From there I proceeded to the Swallow Falls, thence to Capel Curig, a village which affords some of the most picturesque landscapes which can be met with in Wales. Of this prospect it might be truly said:—
“Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not, chaos-like, together crushed and bruised,
But, as the world, harmoniously confused.”
However, I lingered not to contemplate the scene, but proceeded on my journey towards Penygwryd, which I reached just as the great king of day disappeared behind the Cambrian Alps.
The next morning, after partaking of an early breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, I proceeded to the hotel lawn to see whether the day was favourable for an ascent of Yr Wyddfa, the “uwch y mynydd uchaf” of England and Wales. Since the previous day I regretted to find that the weather had undergone a complete change; the summit of Eryri was now enveloped in dark clouds, the morning was cold, and the air was dank and chilly. The moaning of the wind in the great mountain gullies and cwms rendered the scene both awful and sublime. Meeting mine host on the lawn, I inquired if I might venture to ascend Snowdon without the service of a guide. He strongly dissuaded me from attempting an ascent alone, as it would necessarily be attended with great risk. However, after debating the matter some time, I resolved to carry out my original design of going unattended. When I reached the summit I was delighted beyond measure at having accomplished the ascent, by the longest and most difficult route, without the aid of a guide. Having wished Mr. Owen a hearty farewell, I commenced the ascent of Snowdon. Proceeding up the road towards the Pass of Llanberis so far as Pen-y-Pass, I branched off to the left, and soon came to Llyn Teyrn, thence taking the trackless mountain above Cwm Dyli, direct towards Llyn Glaslyn; and thence by a circuitous and difficult route, which a kind mountain miner showed me, to the highest point of the Mother of Hills.
Although I found this route laborious, I was amply recompensed by beholding “scenes of extraordinary wildness and grandeur, over which solitude seemed to brood with undisturbed silence, scarcely ever broken by the wing of bird or the voice of melody.” In every direction prospects the most magnificent opened to view, and every crag and rock which I surmounted was furnished with objects of picturesque effect or deep and absorbing interest. From many a crag I looked down upon the cwms and deep dells beneath, and I fancied I could pick out here and there the very dingles to which our heroic ancestors were compelled to resort for protection, when pursued by numberless hosts of the enemy after they had sustained defeat. In these cwms they were, however, safe. Even proud and haughty Edward dared not follow the Britons to their mountain fastnesses. To them Snowdon had ever proved a kind and guardian angel: hence the reason why they fled thither in the hour of their defeat. No wonder, therefore, that they loved the old mountain deeply and passionately; and no wonder, too, that they composed songs to her honour and renown.
When I attained the summit of the mountain, the sight presented to my view was awfully and majestically wild and grand. The whole circuit of the Snowdonian range was enveloped in a thick and dark mist, which was so dense that I fancied I could cut it with the finest edged tool. The howling of the winds in the cwms and dingles which run down the mountain on every side was really appalling. Indeed, the prospect was horrible to contemplate. It gave an idea, says a writer on the subject, of numbers of abysses concealed by a thick smoke furiously circulating around us. Now and then, however, a strong gust of wind created an opening in the mist, which, for a moment, gave me a magnificent prospect of sea and lake, of deep chasms, and high and lofty mountains, of almost fathomless dingles and ravines; while towns and hamlets appeared in the distance like small specks on the surface of the earth. But the prospect was only momentary. The clouds of mist which were rent asunder by the strong current of wind would, in the twinkling of an eye, again form and unite, and thus present a compact and complete whole, leaving me involved in a darkness that might be felt. In a minute it would again separate into a thousand parts, and fly in wild eddies up the gullies and dingles, thus affording me another opportunity of seeing the Isle of Mona, the mountain of Plynlimmon, Hell’s Mouth, the Iraeth Bach, and that magnificent bay which once formed the rich and fertile plain of Cantref-y-Gwaelod, with its sixteen fortified cities and towns, whose inhabitants met with a watery grave through the drunkenness of Seithenyn, who is styled in the “Triads” as one of the three notorious drunkards of the isle of Britain. Contemplating the scene so strange, yet so grand, the following lines of the poet Rogers struck me as extremely applicable to my then situation:—
“The morning air
Plays on my cheek, how gently, flinging round
A silvery gleam; and now the purple mists
Rise like a curtain; now the sun looks out,
Filling, o’erflowing with his glorious light,
This noble amphitheatre of hills.”
After spending nearly two hours on the summit in gazing upon the wild, yet the grand and majestic scene presented to my view, I felt, as I had to walk to Pont Aberglaslyn, and back to Penygwryd, a distance of nearly twenty miles, that I dare not delay my departure longer; hence I made instant preparation to descend. I, however, left this Alpine top, and bade farewell to old Snowdon, with feelings of deep sorrow and poignant grief. On leaving this most prominent historic spot in the past history of my country, I could not but enter into the deep feeling of reverence with which my forefathers regarded this mountain and its adjacent hills, valleys, and plains. Thought I to myself, was it a wonder that they almost worshipped Yr Wyddfa? Indeed they had every reason for paying honour and homage to it. To them it had ever been a never-failing friend—a sure and safe retreat when they suffered and sustained defeat in battle. To them it afforded a rich and never-failing refuge, in which they lodged the young and the feeble and the non-combatants when they went forth to fight the common foe—the implacable enemies of their dear fatherland—foes and enemies, too, who were strangers to generosity, but who loved conquest for the sake of conquest, and who were alike indifferent to the sacrifice of human blood as they were to English treasures. When they followed our brave and heroic countrymen into the mountain fastnesses of Snowdon, they generally suffered terrible slaughter, and repented having left those fortresses and plains where they so much loved to dwell. Considering the many and the terrible disasters which befell their marches in its fastnesses, no wonder they preferred residing at some distance removed from so impregnable a refuge. To the Welsh warriors it had been a natural guardian angel: hence the reason why they loved it so deeply, so ardently, and with the whole passion of the soul.
After I had descended some distance towards Beddgelert, I turned in order to take a parting farewell-look of this the mother of Cambrian mountains; and in viewing its high and lofty summit, now almost wholly enveloped in mist, I was forcibly struck with the wild, dreary, and boundless scene. From the point on which I stood this ancient hill appeared to be untrodden by human foot, and tenanted only by wandering sheep and goats, except the hoarse-croaking ravens. It was, indeed, sublime to stand, as I stood then, on that spot, and commune with solitude around—to gaze upon Snowdon and her manifold adjacent hills, slumbering calmly beneath me. With me there was no form, no human being, no living thing; but I rejoiced that there, amid this stupendous scene, I could commune freely and uninterruptedly with nature and nature’s God, and with the spirits of my brave and heroic forefathers, whose bones lie buried in that wild and dreary scene; and, as I finally parted from the scene, I sang the following well-known lines, and so my voice re-echoed through the dales and caverns:—