88 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. 



curious hotels, churches, and chapels, will disappear 

 "like the baseless fabric of a vision," just as yonder 

 village of Llanwyddan lies hidden in this lake. But 

 a new Bala will arise on the mountain sides, and its 

 whisky and its water will flourish for ever. 



It was nearly seven o'clock before we could tear 

 ourselves away from Bala, and then, by the toss of a 

 penny, we were destined to return by an equally 

 circuitous route, which led us over the Berwyn 

 Mountains by, if possible, a still more picturesque 

 route than the one by which we had arrived. 



Passing up the mountain side we had glorious views 

 of many other mountains Cader Idris, towering 

 highest away off westward, and Arran Mawddwy, the 

 second highest in Wales, which lifts its cloud-capped 

 head above the hills surrounding Lake Vyrnwy. 

 Then down yonder at our feet we trace the river Dee 

 winding its way through the Vale of Edeirion, said to 

 be the most lovely in the Principality. Yonder is 

 the noble castle of Pale nestling in the woods and 

 looking down the vale. Here it was that Her 

 Majesty spent some days in the year 1889, an d pro- 

 nounced the surrounding scenery to be the most 

 charming she had ever seen, which gracious words 

 have made the inhabitants very proud. 



And so our horses plodded steadily up steeps and 

 down inclines and across undulating moors, and the 

 night came slowly on, till twilight deepened into 

 darkness, and nothing could be seen, and nothing 

 heard but the steady tramp of our horses, the clatter 

 of our own tongues, the occasional bark of a sheep- 

 dog, and the bleating of a mountain sheep in the 



