THE WELSH DEE 



His dwelling is low in a valley green, 



Under the foot of Rauran ^ mussy hore, 



From whence the River Dee, as silver clean, 



His tumbling billows roll with gentle rore : 



There all my days he trained me up in vertruous lore. 



But it was not hereabouts that I used to go, and 

 occasionally still go, seriously a-fishing. For there is a 

 bit of the river, some seven miles in all, that for the last 

 quarter of a century has always held me as the period 

 of the March brown draws near — sometimes only 

 in dreams, sometimes to accomplishment. This is 

 between the old five-arched stone bridge at Llan- 

 saintffraid — lately re-christened Carrog, since there 

 are seventeen Llansaintffraids in Wales, and the chain 

 bridge over the rapids at Berwyn just above Llan- 

 gollen. From Bala to Corwen, a dozen miles, and 

 indeed on to Carrog, two miles below again, the 

 curving river sweeps through the meadowy vale of 

 Edeyrnion in alternating stream and pool and always 

 overhung by the high, waving barrier of the Berwyn 

 mountains. After this it enters the narrow troughs 

 of Glyndyfrdwy and thenceforward, amid a beautiful 

 confusion of wood and rock, pressed between unfold- 

 ing heights of quite imposing stature, urges its resound- 

 ing course into the famous vale of LlangoUen. 



The traveller by the Great Western to the west 

 coast watering-places, already invoked at the cradle 

 of Arthur, scarcely leaves the Dee, from its entry into 

 England at Ruabon to its source in the Arrans. In the 

 reaches I have in mind, however, the river is so buried 

 in woods that there is little to be seen of it after the 



^ Arran. 



47 



