462 WILD FLOWERS OF 



we stood. At this point my nerves actually quailed 

 at the prospect, and I felt I could move no farther. 

 But ray little guide soon gave me a recipe for my ner- 

 vousness, occasioned by my looking down into the 

 cloudy gulph beneath. "Lookup," said he, "creep 

 close to the rock, and there is no danger." I still 

 hesitated, till measuring the distance with my eye, 

 and at last forming my resolve, I closed my eyes on 

 the fearful view, felt my way with cautious steps, 

 crossed the dreaded ledge in safety, and gathered my 

 plant ! After that all was lightsome to the summit 

 of the cliff, and thence over the flank of the Grlyder 

 by Llyn Own, and down into the vale of Llanberis, to 

 a glorious regale at the Dolbadran Castle.* 



But to the " Botanical Explorator," as well as to 

 every mind awake to the love of the bold and the 

 beautiful, a contemplative day on the sea-shore, in 

 the autumnal season, affords a mental banquet of the 

 highest order ; and, of necessity, the calm, delicious 

 tranquility that pervades the mind, is not undivested 

 of a dash of melancholy, from the feeling that the 

 glories before the eye will soon be succeeded by the 

 fierce uproar of the brumal tempest. As first impres- 

 sions are always the most vivid, I will here extract a 

 short account I penned some years ago of a passing 

 visit to the pretty village of Budleigh Salterton, 

 Devonshire, because here I passed my first solitary 

 day in the contemplation of the restless ocean a day 

 that still rises in my mind a chrystal gem, amidst the 

 dull, sad, and opaque rejectamenta of memory. 



It was most lovely autumnal weather, with a kind 



* The Inn of that name, which has every comfortable appliance a 

 Botanical Explorator can desire, and not the ruined tower on the side of 

 Llanberis lake. 



