394 WILD TLOWEES OF 



the erosion of centuries on their time-worn cheeks ; 

 and the highest peak with its cairn of stones here 

 comes into view, like a lofty pyramid, distinct in its 

 altitude from the nearer broken and disjointed masses 

 of the shattered black cliffs. Before ascending these 

 heights, I diverged to see the cascade of the Twrch, 

 higher up the valley where it narrows almost to a 

 glen, with a bare green mountain on one side, and a 

 steep eminence on the other pleasingly covered with 

 a natural forest of birches. Having arrived at the 

 entrance of the pass called Bivlcli-y-groes, the sound 

 of tumbling water in the deep glen on my right di- 

 rected me to the water-fall, and I hastened down to 

 it. From the paucity of water at that time it had 

 more the appearance of a number of water-leaps 

 among a great disruption of rocky masses, rather than 

 a cascade in the strict sense of the term. It would 

 appear as if a water-spout had burst in among the 

 mountains years ago, sweeping a ruin of massive 

 boulder-stones before it, which had been left heaped 

 confusedly upon each other in this cavity, since which 

 the water has rolled musically among them, sportively 

 leaping from one to another, burrowing beneath some, 

 sliding over the slicky surface of others, and more or 

 less marking all with those deep indented curious 

 circular impressions, which suggest the idea of their 

 being the tracks of some monstrous extinct animal of 

 bulk sufficient to seal its progress over the rocks ! 

 The scene is very pretty and romantic at the com- 

 mencement of the fall, where two huge cromlech-like 

 stones seem to bar the way, and the stream dashes 

 down a deep gap between them, commencing thence 

 a series of leaps, plunges, and niurmurings among the 



