216 WILD FLOWERS OF 



scaled not without risk of life or limb, and long dis- 

 tances must be painfully trodden, not uncommonly 

 (as it lias been oft our lot to experience) amidst tor- 

 rents of rain. 



I had rather a dangerous adventure some years 

 since, on the summit of the Brecon Yan mountain. 

 While on the peak, I observed a tuft of white flowers 

 some little distance down the precipitous side which 

 descends perpendicularly in one unbroken cliff many 

 hundred feet, I Was alone, and the plant lay too far 

 beyond my reach either to gather it or to ascertain 

 with certainty what the species was. Unwilling, how- 

 ever, to retreat without it, I looked about for some 

 means to effect my object. I found a stick left by 

 some guide or former traveller, and planting this 

 firmly in a crevice of the rock, I used it with one 

 hand, while I sought support farther below with my 

 umbrella on the other. A slight projection gave me 

 a resting-place for my foot, and thus cautiously de- 

 scending, I got within reach of the desired plant. I 

 had just seized a portion of its flowers in my hand, 

 when the crumbling sandstone I was trusting to gave 

 way, splintered into pieces, and plunged thundering 

 far below ; and had I not at the moment immediately 

 sprung upwards and caught the fixed stick, I must 

 have fallen myself and doubtless been dashed to pieces 

 without the possibility of escape. Safe back again 

 upon the summit, I yet trembled nervously for some 

 minutes afterwards, and shrunk instinctively from the 

 edge of the precipice. -Even Botany is not without 

 its incidents. Eroni this lofty but dangerous spot, 

 two persons from Brecon, not very long after my visit, 

 fell in a mysterious manner never fully explained, 



