OF AN INSECT HUNTER. QQ 



such a scene. The sound of a scythe, plied by a solitary 

 being with that jerk so peculiarly Welsh, echoed from hill to 

 hill : the swarth was nothing but the harsh and stunted rush, 

 valueless except for litter. Occasionally in the more sheltered 

 situations a few small corn-fields were clustered around some 

 miserable sheds, and waved their still green corn ; but the thin, 

 backward, and weather-beaten crops were rather a melancholy 

 than a pleasing sight ; they seemed fully to participate in the 

 dreary desolation which reigned around. 



It is in this situation, in the bosom of this very desolation, 

 that there exists scenery as lovely, as unspeakably romantic, 

 as man ever beheld, or as his warmest imagination can picture. 

 It is here that our longings for the beautiful are satisfied ! 

 It is here that the spirit drinks to repletion as nature's 

 glorious fount ! It is here that wood, rock, and water are 

 thrown together in endless variety, in beauteous disorder, in 

 boundless profusion. 



The desolate country I have attempted to describe is inter- 

 sected by numerous mountain streams : of these the principal 

 are the Rheidiol, the Mynach, and the Ystwith. These rivers, 

 instead of flowing quietly through an open country, are in this 

 district concealed in chasms which intersect the mountains in 

 various directions. Now it will require the judgment of a far 

 better instructed geologist than the Insect-Hunter, to say whe- 

 ther the rivers have, in the lapse of ages, by the excessive 

 rapidity of their course, worn for themselves the chasms through 

 which they now flow, or whether, at some distant period, the 

 earth has been convulsed by subterraneous agency, its surface 

 cloven, and thus those chasms created of which the rivers now 

 avail themselves. The evidence of fissure is said to be quite 

 indisputable, and I believe it will be difficult to account for the 

 remarkable appearances at Ponterwydd and the Devil's Bridge, 

 by the present action of the water. At Ponterwydd in particular 

 it will be seen that the Rheidiol has neither chosen the most 

 direct nor the most easy course, but has found a way through 

 a solid rock, of very considerable height: it first flows 

 towards the Inn, and then turns at a right angle, still through 

 the rock, the opposite and perpendicular walls of which nearly 

 correspond : it then arrives at a spot which it might have 

 reached from the bridges with a tenth part of the difficulties 

 which it has chosen to encounter. Wherever the rock is hard 



