WILD LIFE IN WALES 



CHAPTER I 



Introductory T.ack of English No schooling Music "A cup of tea?" 

 Poultry Oatcakes Pancakes Eggs Lipton Dewar Small farms 

 Wild sheep Leading sheep Collies Numbers of dogs and sheep 

 Blue Merles Sheep-worrying Sheep fairs Welsh mutton. 



ON that branch of the Great Western Railway which serves 

 the vale of the Dee, and carries crowds of pleasure-seekers 

 every season to such favourite resorts as Llangollen and 

 Bala, there is a small wayside station in the heart of 

 Merionethshire named Llanuwchllyn. The village, hard 

 by, which gives its name to the station, straggles across 

 the valley for nearly a mile ; but its long line of low houses 

 offers few attractions to the summer tourists who annually 

 pass it by on their way to Dolgelly and Barmouth, and, 

 save for the invasion of a mere handful of people who 

 have discovered its charms from the contemplative man's 

 point of view, it still slumbers in undisturbed and almost 

 primitive simplicity. " The Land of my Fathers " is its 

 anthem, and " Oes y hyd i'r laith Gymraeg" ("The Welsh 

 language as long as the world lasts ") expresses the senti- 

 ment of its inhabitants. " Bore da " and " Nos dawch " 

 take the place of the familiar " Good morning " or " Good 

 night," and the chances are that any elderly person, 

 interrogated even upon such a simple topic as the state 

 of the weather, may shake his or her head and with difficulty 

 murmur " No English " ; or, if pressed to enter into con- 

 versation, will have recourse to some younger member of 

 the family to act as interpreter. Up in the glens, away 

 from main roads, conditions are still more primitive, for 



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