96 ; CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
ruin, rising proudly from the shelving sides of the 
rock, and washed by the high tides of the river. It 
was a fine evening, in the month of June. The 
sun was setting in mild majesty, his tempered beams 
shed a soft radiance on the aged ruin, and tipped 
with silver the dark drapery of ivy and festoons 
of wild honeysuckles which streamed down the 
broken walls. All was silent, except the rushing of 
the stream, or the gentle sighing of the wind, as it 
murmured through the ruined chambers, and shook 
the long fantastic tufts of withered grass, ‘‘ wherewith 
the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth 
sheaves his bosom.” This scene of desolation brought 
to his remembrance the days of ancient times, when 
the sun rose as gloriously, and set as mildly over the 
proud battlements of Conway Castle, as then on its 
deserted ruin. He thought, too, of the joy and grief 
with which, for more than ten centuries, those must 
be familiar, who were once its glory and its boast, 
but are now forgotten; and his thoughts recurred 
to the busy multitudes who once resorted to the 
Conway in quest of its valuable gems, but whose 
remembrance has passed away like the billows of its 
mountain stream. 
Chateaubriand preserved as memorials of his travels 
the waters of the different rivers that he visited. With 
the same view the Shell Collector has added to the 
