ELAN LAKES— WILD SOUTH WALES 



VI 



THE ELAN LAKES AND WILD 

 SOUTH WALES 



I AM always glad to remember that I had at least 

 a glimpse of those two beautiful and sequestered 

 vales of the Elan and the Claerwen before the 

 needs and enterprise of Birmingham submerged them. 

 But if the murky metropolis of the Midlands has 

 created a transformation scene, that scene is still one 

 of beauty and purity — ^nay, even of seclusion, peace, 

 and romance. For the wild hills, the craggy mountain 

 steeps, that in former days dipped into narrow ribbon- 

 like vales of green meadow fringed with indigenous 

 oak, and dotted at intervals with a snug homestead or 

 a water-mill, now cast their shadows everywhere upon 

 the surface of broad and brimming waters. From 

 the great dam at the foot of all, a veritable Niagara 

 in high water, wedged between the imposing rugged 

 heights of Cwm Toyddwr, the connecting lakes push 

 back some three miles up the Claerwen valley to the 

 west, and more than twice that distance up the Elan 

 to the north. There are three other dams, for there 

 are four lakes, and the plash of those great lace-Hke 

 veils of falling water, over a hundred feet in height, 

 is virtually the only sound that breaks the silence of 



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