H0TJR8 AMONG THE ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 191 



buried itself deep in gloom, with mingled feelings. All was dark and horrific 

 above, and from the tempest of ruin scattered round, it was evidently unsafe to 

 penetrate too far into the demon's den, many of whose weighty masses of cliff 

 seemed to hang tremblingly in the air, among the vapours that veiled their ser- 

 rated pinnacles, and I was not sorry to be safe at their base, instead of treading 

 the dizzy verge of their summits to seek an outlet. Below me Llyn Idwat 

 lay pillowed still as death in his mountain tomb, a pall of excessive darkness, 

 impenetrable to the eye, spread over its uncertain boundaries from the over-hanging 

 precipices, above which the kingly crest of Carnedd David, rising with stately 

 grandeur in the ebon sky, seemed to exercise a solemn guardianship. As we 

 descended the slippery rocks I seized specimens of the Cambrian Poppy (Meco- 

 nopsis Cambrica), starting forth from the gaping crevices, tbe beautiful Saxifraga 

 oppositifolia, S. hypnoides, and its affinities, here profusely carpetting the masses 

 of rock by the splashing torrent, and the red-tinged foliage of that constant rock- 

 lover Rhodiola rosea. We now skirted the black Llyn to where, amidst stones of 

 all shapes and sizes — 



" Ai if the moon had shower M them down in spite j" 



its waters reluctantly growled with hoarse voice a sad adieu to their mountain 

 cradle. A bridge, rough and rugged as the scene about it, now offered its last 

 churlish aid, and my guide, who had told of travellers perishing without hope on 

 Moel Siabod and other mountains about Capel Curig in storm, cold, and snow, 

 having now emptied his budget, and scenting the termination of his duties, though 

 yet afar off, sped on far in front to light his pipe at the next dwelling near Llyn 

 Ogwen, and left me to my meditations. 



Yet even in summer, bright, fervid, and glorious, without a cloud to check the 

 insufferable brightness, one may incautiously get entangled in the woody vallies, 

 as in antumn upon the mountains. One afternoon, straying on the margin of an 

 extensive wood, bordered with showering Roses, bright Orchidece and numerous 

 other plants, now watching the progress of a marbled Butterfly (Hipparchia 

 galatkea), among the pink Trefoils, now following the devious flight of a " chalk- 

 hill blue" (Polyommalus Corydon), among the scattered bushes, I imperceptibly 

 got involved in " the navel of this hideous wood." To find path where path was 

 none, was a tedious process, till, all inlet and even outlet failing, I was fairly 

 made a captive in the thorny maze. Wherever the least opening appeared it 

 was sure to terminate in a dense thicket of thorns and brambles, while the foliage, 

 just deep enough to smother one over head and ears, but offering no large timber 

 for an observing climb, was peculiarly tantalizing. I turned, stopt, pushed on, 

 crept, — dashed franticly among the underwood till I was covered with thorns — 

 all was vain ; the sun rapidly descending to his evening couch, now shot vividly 



