OUR HOLIDAY IN WILD WALES. 75 



on the glorious summer evening of our arrival, one's 

 first impression of it is that of its vast antiquity. Sur- 

 rounded as it is by the everlasting hills, its rugged 

 time-worn shores surely prove that its existence is 

 coeval with the hoary mountains that encompass it. 

 Yonder, standing out in the lake, is an ancient 

 Italian tower, which in the gloaming looks as old and 

 weather-beaten as the " prison of Chillon, " to which, 

 indeed, it bears a marked resemblance, not, one may 

 presume, undesigned. Another first impression is 

 the perfect peace which reigns around this ancient 

 lake. There is a gentle silent simmer on the surface 

 of the water, and nothing is heard but the singing of 

 many birds in the woods beneath us. 



When I read the very interesting description of 

 this lake which appeared in "The Fishing Gazette" a 

 long time ago, written by C. W. Gedney, I decided 

 to take the first chance of coming and seeing it for 

 myself. He seems to have described every part of it 

 in so thorough and practical a way, and always with 

 an angler's eye to its fishing capabilities, that I 

 hardly see an opening for a mere amateur to find 

 anything new to say about it ; but, as a truthful 

 narrator, I must tell of things as I find them. 



July \st. Sitting in one of the summer-houses 

 which the hotel provides for its guests on a rugged 

 brow, looking down upon the lake over the top of a 

 fringe of green oak foliage, who shall tell me that 

 yonder expanse of blue water lying in a great basin, 

 formed by a circle of Welsh hills a thousand feet 

 above the sea, has not reflected the wood-crowned 

 heights, brown heather-clad mountains, cultivated 



