OUR HOLIDAY IN WILD WALES. 73 



like the Abyssinian Rasselas, rose up amongst them, 

 who would not be confined within the limits of these 

 hills. He was cautioned by the sages of the valley 

 that beyond those mountains were " regions of 

 calamity, where discord was always raging, and 

 where man preyed upon man," but he would not be 

 persuaded. He set forth on his travels till he came 

 to a great city, whose inhabitants were in danger of 

 perishing for lack of water; there he saw "the 

 miseries of the world " which he had gone forth in 

 search of, and he told those unhappy people all about 

 his own native valley, through which a pleasant river 

 ran, perpetually supplied from the everlasting hills, 

 pure and sweet. And the men of that great city 

 arose and went to see this happy valley, and they 

 coveted it. They said, we will dam up one end of 

 the valley and make a great lake, which shall climb 

 a hundred feet up the sides of the hills, and this 

 water shall be a perpetual source of supply to our 

 great city ; we will bore holes through mountains, 

 lay down great pipes and aqueducts across valleys, 

 and pour into the reservoirs of our city, and our 

 people shall no longer be in danger of perishing for 

 want of water. This great deed was done, the water 

 gradually rose up and filled the valley, and the people 

 who had lived there all their lives were driven out to 

 find for themselves new homes elsewhere ; but some 

 of the very old people loved the place of their birth, 

 and would not move out of their houses till the rising 

 waters poured in at their windows, then they went 

 away and died of broken hearts. Still the waters 

 rose, till farms and villages, churches, chapels, and 



