Glories of A Wet Autumn in North Wales. The DOVEY: Source of the Stream—Dinas Mowddwy—Mallwyd—Machynlleth. The DYSYNNI: Tal-y-Llyn—The “Bird Rock”—TOWYN. The MAWDDACH: The Estuary—The Wnion—Torrent Walk—Dolgelley—Precipice Walk—The Estuary—Barmouth—Harlech Castle—Portmadoc—The Glaslyn—Tremadoc and Shelley—The Traeth Bach.
THERE are times of the year when North Wales seems to be all rivers and mountain torrents and tumbling cataracts. The hills are seamed by thin, white streaks of foaming water. It is as if all the land were rushing down to the valleys and the sea. What was yesterday a slow dribble from pool to pool, a scarcely perceptible moisture among weeds, a narrow reflection of sky among stones and boulders, is to-day a broad, impetuous stream, or a wide expanse of bog-stained water, or a torrent swollen and turbulent. The cataracts which have disappointed the tourist in dry seasons come down in a way that wholly sustains their ancient reputation. But the mountains are, for the most part, hidden in mist, or whelmed in cloud; the white roads glitter like streams, and—
“The rain, it raineth every day;
Heigho, the wind and the rain!”
Yet, decidedly, it is in a wet autumn that one should see North Wales. “Then, if ever, are perfect days,” when the whole glory of wild Nature reveals itself in some interval of dripping rains; when the brown foliage, dipping into the flooded rivers, glows like gold in some sudden outburst of the sun; and when the mountains fade upward from their heathery bases, and purple middle-distances, into shadowy peaks of faintest blue.
RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.
How fascinatingly the bells of Aberdovey have rung themselves into the popular consciousness! And all by means of some foolish verses that are as securely immortal as the famous and touching air in which Neil Gow has set the bells of Edinburgh town to music:—