19*2 HOURS AMONG THE ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 



his level rays upon the foliage, but could not penetrate their interior. As a last 

 resource, I drew a large clasp-knife from my pocket, and in the direction of the 

 west cut down all before me, till I was tired of slaughter, but without apparently 

 bettering my condition. I began to prepare for a night vigil in the wood, and — 



" Under the greenwood tree 

 Who loves to lie with me," 



presented itself as a very apt quotation adapted to my present circumstances, 

 only that unfortunately no one could respond to my call. At last, towering 

 afar-off like a turreted cloud rising in the western horizon, a mighty Oak met my 

 view, and my knife was again put in requisition to hack my way towards his 

 dominance, meaning from his high head to take a keen survey of my forest 

 position. He seemed surrounded with a triple guard — on one side the dwarf 

 Blackthorns, with ten thousand multiplied spines, presented a barrier utterly 

 impenetrable to my scanty means of offence, even had the day and not the night 

 been before me — on another side Brambles ramified thicker than snow-flakes 

 wound around each other, arching and inarching with curved spines, enough to 

 terrify an Indian — here and there flanked by a dwarf spreading Hawthorn or 

 Holly-bush, — while a crowd of tiralleurs in the shape of Thistles, rampant Net- 

 tles, and Furze, swarmed in the advance. Round this rampart I slowly wheeled, 

 now and then attempting a charge upon the enemy, but to very little purpose, 

 finding them too anxious to retain me among them ! While thus engaged in a 

 recognizance, Fortune, ever faithful to the brave, led me stumbling against a 

 mound which stopped my progress — and no poor captive flying from a dungeon 

 ever felt more pleasure than I did, when, on scaling this mound, I perceived only 

 a rude ditch between me and a scattered vista of trees leading to the termination 

 of the wood. ; j 



But I began about Plinlimmon, its rocks, and its waters ; I got among its 

 clouds, and whither have they led me ? They have whirled me like the umbrella 

 I have heard of, that left its master's hand on the top of Cader Tdris, and was 

 found the next week on Plimlimmon, only that in this case I have been swept 

 from the mountain. Well, I have only in this case to borrow another umbrella 

 to get to it again, and I shall do so forthwith, for I have not done with the " Rocks 

 and the Clouds" yet. — Plinlimmon has only been looked at, certainly not ascended : 

 there I just catch his gloomy outline in the west as he slowly blankets himself 

 up for the night. He is a good twelve miles off, for I am only now pausing at 

 Llanidloes, below that bold Cat's-back ridge that struts up the Clydach glen 

 whose wier increases its sullen thunder with the increasing gloom. Gloomy as 

 the landscape now becomes, one flask of light, as if forgotten, settled on the 

 heathy ridge now in glorious blossom, but has it in a purple glow of radiance, 



