CLEAR WATERS 



fish, however, are killed in the private waters immedi- 

 ately below Rhayader. 



This twelve-mile stretch of the Wye from Rhayader 

 downwards is, I think, as beautiful as any of the 

 sections or sub-sections into which the queen of 

 English and Welsh rivers naturally falls, and I know 

 the river well from its source to its mouth. Just 

 below the little town the Elan comes racing in from 

 the west, and the big dam, three miles away, glitters 

 brightly over a foreground of green meadows, behind 

 which the bold and rugged masses of the Cwm Toyddur 

 hills form an imposing background as well as a barrier 

 to the country of the lakes behind them. The 

 salmon have not yet lost their habit of running up the 

 Elan to spawn in the gravelly streams of the now 

 submerged valley, and they must be sorely discon- 

 certed to find themselves confronted by a sheer 

 cataract one hundred and twenty feet high ! Swollen 

 by the Elan, which is fine fishing below the lakes, the 

 Wye now sweeps or rages downward through a long 

 series of most inspiring sylvan scenes, its waters 

 churned into a thousand moods by the rugged nature 

 of their bed. Above the mantling woods, that in 

 autumn sunshine wave such a glorious canopy upon the 

 river's now wide and fretting surface, lofty rock- 

 breasted hills, beautifully diversified with the rich 

 colouring of wilder Wales — with grey cliff and emerald 

 sward, with russet fern and birchen glade — lift their 

 summits skyward. The park lands of Doldowlod, 

 with their fringing woods, squeeze themselves pictur- 

 esquely along the river bank, while Doleven, upon the 

 same Radnor shore, towers above all to a height of 

 198 



