68 WANPERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



The kites were for ever wheeling over them, shaping their course 

 with their elegantly-forked tails ; and buzzards were continually 

 heard mewing above us. One moor-buzzard, of whitest head, 

 swept across the mountain ; sparrow-hawks and kestrils were 

 abundant wherever the vast waste had, by the way-side, reluc- 

 tantly submitted to any attempt at cultivation. The day was 

 hot, and the rapid Aglaia continually winged by us and away 

 up the mountain ; it occurred principally where an occasional 

 tract was partially clothed with fern, Pteris aqiiilina, of which 

 plant it appears particularly fond. The ubiquitous Alexis 

 flitted along the road, and Tithonus fluttered round every flower. 

 I have before remarked the abundance of flowers in Wales, and 

 even in this dreary region every acre of soil that had been 

 turned up by the ploughshare produced an abundant garden 

 of the gayest flowers, and afforded a most pleasing contrast to 

 the monotonous face of nature all around us. 



From Llangurig the road rises by a gradual ascent to the 

 Plinlimmon Inn, a distance of eight or nine miles ; it has here 

 reached its highest point : the two chains of mountains ap- 

 proximate, and the road passes between them. The view which 

 opens beyond, has a similar monotonous and dreary grandeur : 

 mountain is piled on mountain in every direction, and all possess 

 the same undulating outline, and the same smooth, treeless 

 verdure, until, at a turn in the road, Ponterwydd, with its three 

 houses, its mill, its two bridges and solitary hostelry, appeared 

 before us. Here we were right glad to make a halt ; as I 

 believe does every traveller, whether on foot or horseback, or 

 in a carriage. It is like an oasis in a desert. The house was 

 full to overflowing ; it was crammed with travellers of all sorts 

 and sizes; the stables were full of horses and hostlers, and 

 coachmen and postboys : the coach-house was inhabited by a 

 most choice variety of vehicles, besides a cast of hawks, viz. 

 kites and buzzards, which mewed incessantly, and which made 

 very free with the various implements of locomotion. — Extract 

 from Note-hook. " Potatos at Ponterwydd were nasty green 

 poisonous-looking bulbs, in size and colour more like the berries 

 than the roots of the plant ; they were served three or four 

 hundred in a dish : their taste was not disagreeable." 



Brightly rose the sun over the mountain tops, each casting 

 its huge shadow on another ; here and there a mountain was 

 half darkened by its own projection. Grand, but desolate is 



