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envy their initial look out over far-spreading heaths and wilds, though 

 there might be some danger then from robbers, and more difficulty 

 with impassable roads. But their noses smelt out the grand features 

 and localities of plants, and in follov/ing their footsteps we perhaps, 

 even in the present day, sport upon the best ground. It is a pleasure 

 to me to get upon the track of the old botanists, become consecrated 

 and classic by their indications, and probably it would be very instruc- 

 tive to examine in detail such primitive places at present. 



Craig Breidden,* in Montgomeryshire, still maintains its position 

 in all our floras as the peculiar locality for Potentilla rupestris, and 

 hence I had often felt a wish to explore its declivities. Seen from the 

 proud Wrekin, in Shropshire, it appears as a triple-peaked range of 

 hills, similar in character but far less in extent than the Malverns. 

 But from the vicinity of Welchpool these distinct hills, foreshortened, 

 appear as one grand mass, like a purple castellated cloud of evening 

 ascending in the horizon isolated and rugged, the black head of Moel- 

 y-Golfa crowning the whole like a volcanic peak. It matters not the 

 day or the year that saw me at Welchpool on my route to Aberyst- 

 with, but there I was ; and goaded by botanical enterprize I deter- 

 mined to fulfil my pilgrim-vow of climbing Craig Breidden. 



Fine but sultry weather had set in with the month of August, and 

 though in general no stickler at dusty roads or rutty lanes, wishing to 

 reserve myself for the heights of the Craig, I got mine host of the 

 'Bear' to furnish me with a gig, and having previously sent on a 

 guide, took him up at the second turnpike, where, diverging from the 

 main road, we proceeded along some rutty, marshy lanes till we 

 arrived at the base of the mountain. Here a narrow pass presented 

 itself between Craig Breidden itself and the frowning Moel-y-Golfa. 

 Dismounting at the end of this pass, I sent the horse and gig to wait 

 my return at a small road-side inn called the ' Plough and Harrow,' 

 not far distant, and then dashed on with my guide for the summit of 

 the Craig. 



From the distant view I had obtained of Craig Breidden, and all 

 accounts I had met with of it, I expected a rude, waste, precipitous 

 mass of rock and glen, over which an explorer might wander without 

 any obstruction, save that of the steep escarpment of the rock. I was 

 therefore somewhat surprised at being ushered into a dense planta- 

 tion of firs and larches, at whose skirts two white boards ominously 

 exhibited a Priapeian aspect to scare intruders, one threatening pro- 



* Generally pronounced Biithen. 



