Welsh Journals

directly facing the hotel was in like case. But we had settled upon the climb for that morning, and though half doubting the wisdom of tne attempt in such weather, off we set without further ado, trusting to luck to help us along. After a mile or more along the high road, a sharp turn to the right by the Pen y Pass Hotel (1,200 feet above sea level) brought us on to a very rough road which skirted Crib v Ddysygl the way along, and where for the next four miles the going right to the foot of Snowdon was strewn with loose stones and boulders and made progress slow. On the left were passed in turn Llyn Teyrn, Llyn Llydaw, and Llyn Glaslyn-where the river of that name has its source and after passing through the two lakes first mentioned, meanders down through the bare valley of Gwynant and the beautifully and wooded Pass of Aberglasglyn to lose itself afterwards in Tre- madoc Bay. Accustomed to the heather-clad hills of our native Uwchaled and the Berwvns, these stark black masses of the inner Snowdon group created in us a feeling almost of awe and dread. At times the sun struggled through fit- fully for a minute or two, and the hills reflected its rays in tones of purple and blue, changing again to blue-black and then to angry green, and casting its shadows upon the lakes in shades of steel-blue and the same deep green. The mock- ing note of the cuckoo had been heard on Moel Siabod that morning, and we had both viewed and heard the curlew. The snipe, too, v-ere drumming there the night before. But in this inner ring not a bird was to be seen beyond a meadow pipit or two, and the only sound was of running water and the leat of mountain sheep. We were eager for sight of raven and hawk, but none was about. In was, indeed, sheer stark desolation in block letters, but desolation fascinating and gripping and never to be for- gotten. In the meantime several sharp showers had fallen from which shelter had to be sought where it could be got in some derelict mining buildings; and the mist had been creeping stealthily down the slope, having covered both Lliwedd and Crib Goch in its soft gray mantle. To a man ignorant both of mountain climbing and the hill itself, ill-shod, moreover, as we were for the work in hand, it would have been unwise to attempt to climb further in the mist. So discretion won, and all-unwillingly the descent was made back to the lake and the way home- wards taken. Before we had covered a short mile, a rainstorm broke and beat down on us the whole way back, wetting us to the skin and landing us at the hotel like a towel that had fallen into the bath. But the Pen y Gwryd is used to that sort of thing, and a hot bath is always ready with the latest thing in clothes- drying to put a man and his apparel to rights. The weather continued broken and unsettled for the rest of the day and kept even body indoors, but the sight of other animated wet towels land- ing back after similar adventures is a wonderful sedative, and a nice warm fire with a jolly good dinner afterwards and congenial company to share it with soon puts the rain out of mind. After dinner, the sky cleared a little and a run was made to pretty little Beddgelert,5 seven miles down the \ale of Gwynant. At the village the vale merges into the Pass of Aberglaslyn, now at its best in its springtime greenery. We were gratified to find anorestation in course hereabouts with things in that regard looking well and promising. Duty is ever an irksome jade. Truth, never- theless, compels us to tell those kind-hearted readers who have been moved to sorrow over the romantic story of ,l Gelert Ci Llywelyn at Beddgelert here, and have dropped a sympathetic tear over the grave of that faithful hound of the song, that the thing is nothing but a tale of cock-and-bull, the ingenious idea of one David Prichard, the occupier of the Goat Hotel when it was built in 1801, who brought the stone from elsewhere for the goat to browse on and grow fat.s Ouoting Dr. Beddoe as his authority, Professor J. E. Lloyd says that the dark folk of Wales nowhere muster in greater strength than in the two old-world centres of Rhayader and Bedd- gelert. We ourselves noticed no great tawny pigmentation in the folk at Beddgelert, neither have we at any time seen any conspicuous pro- portion of dark skins around Rhayader. On the contrary, Rhayader in particular has alwavs seemed to us a district of light Brythonic folk. It may be, however, that when we were about, the little dark people of both places were indoors weaving spells or making broomsticks, and that we missed them. The name of Beddgelert is said to com- memorate either St. Celert or a Goidelic chieftain of that name.7 The weather on Saturday morning having picked up, it was decided to have another try at Snowdon, this time from the Llanberis side, where the climb is gradual and easy and a person using common care need have no fear of a broken neck with its inconvenient consequences. « The village ds, of course, modern, and created by the tourist traffic, for which provision was first made when the Goat Hotel was opened in 1801. 'It had no place at all in the folklore of this part (says the local antiquary, Bleddyn) until it was brought to the parish by the late David Prichard, of the Goat Hotel, who was a native of South Wales. It was he, along with William Prichard, the parish clerk. and Richard Edwards, of Pen y Bont Fach, who raised the stone that is exhibited to-day on the spot that was afterwards called 'The Dog's Grave.' They carried the present stone from another place in order to put it where it now is.' "The Mountains of Snowdonia," Chap. 1, pp. 22-23. 8 "History of Wales," Vol. 1, p. 15. 7 "The Mountains of Snowdonia." Chap. 11, p. 37.