

366 HOURS AMONG ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 



heaps in clamourous exultation, and the hollow glens had hoarsely echoed their 

 thanks in exulting reply. Alas ! we were indeed reckoning without our host, 

 who seized upon the Lion's share for himself. Scarcely had we mounted the 

 higher ridges, than conflicting blasts shook us about like Thistle-down, and vain 

 for some time were our efforts to get on. At last, in close phalanx we pressed 

 along for a huge cairn we saw rising before us, and, tacking about towards its 

 leeward side, laughed at the baffled blast. Down, in the thoughtlessness of the 

 moment, fell two or three upon the side of the cairn, and amongst the rest the 

 sherry-bearer. The wine was now called for — when, with dismay and confusion, 

 our companion produced from his pocket the sealed neck of the bottle, but its 

 nether part, to our sad mortification, had sustained a compound fracture as he 

 flopped down upon the pointed stones, and the wine was thus " left behind," a 

 libation to the Crows. 



At a distance Plinlimmon appears to constitute a long abrupt ridge, which on 

 a nearer view seems to have five or more distinct points rising a little higher 

 than the general mass — these were formerly used as beacons, and are now covered 

 with carneddau (piled heaps of stones) — hence the origin of the Welch name Per 

 Lumon, or the five beacons. This name, however, would appear not to be verj 

 ancient, as in Giraldus Cambrensis these ridges, with other subject masses 

 that stretch on to the Teivy lakes, bear merely the general name of the Elennitl 

 mountains. Having once entered upon the outworks of Plinlimmon, all definite 

 shape disappears, and a series of dismal winding defiles and dark Hog's-bacl 

 ridges appear in wearying succession, without a single rising pile of uncovered 

 rock to break the monotony, while treacherous bogs, concealed within the tur 

 plunge the heedless stranger in their plashy embrace as he urges on his wearj 

 way. Add to this, a wreathy mist descending in a moment obscures ever 

 object, and confuses the ideas of a stranger to the ground to such a degree, that, 

 vainly attempting to note his devious progress up the dark and deep defiles, he 

 would be likely to attempt a return in the very opposite direction from that 

 which he sought ; while wind and rain, almost constant concomitants of this 

 aquarian district, might complete a scene of disaster difficult to escape from. 

 Hence a guide becomes indispensable on this mountain, and the difficulties of 

 access to it enabled Owain Glundwr to maintain himself here with a small 

 force for a considerable time. 



I can only compare Plinlimmon to a number of hills with their subject ridges 

 and passes penetrated by a Serpent-host of streamlets. These gloomy mounds 

 are piled confusedly around a wide central depression or elevated plain, now con- 

 stituting a moss or turbary, covered with Heath, Rushes, and various species of 

 Vaccinium and Lycopodium. This is intersected by the hand of Nature with 

 deep gulfs and an endless series of ditches and hollows, formed by the powerful 



