ELAN LAKES WILD SOUTH WALES 



and shadowy masses of the Brecon Beacons leaped 

 high into the sky. I looked westward over the wilder- 

 ness, across the wild valleys down which with the eye 

 of memory I could see the upper waters of the Yrvon 

 and the Towy churning and boiling southward in 

 their deep rock-bound chasms. I could see with the 

 naked eye over the farthest edge of the solitary moors 

 to the green lowlands of Cardigan, and beyond them 

 in a blue haze the Irish Sea. For it was nine o'clock 

 on a fresh, bright, summer morning. To the eastward, 

 beyond the nearer mountains, in whose hollows the 

 Elan lakes were winding, stretched away the valley of 

 the Wye, easy enough, if you know it, to keep track 

 of by its sentinel hills from Rhayader to far Aberedw, 

 where it breaks its tempestuous way through the 

 Epynt range towards the English border. Radnor 

 forest, topped by Black Mixon, rolled its blue-rounded 

 summits against the far sky-line. 



Looking over the nearer waste with my glasses I 

 soon made out, some three or four miles away, the red 

 scaur which I had been told marked the site of the 

 little tarn of Llyn Carw, hard to come at, rarely 

 sought, but famous in local gossip for its handsome 

 trout, and I took my bearings. Next morning the 

 lakes were still too thick, and having fished theClaerwen, 

 which was in fine order, but so full of hungry fingerlings 

 that an accidental quarter-pounder almost upset my 

 nerves, I started after lunch with a rod to hunt for 

 Llyn Carw, which my host had told me was three 

 miles away, but difficult to find. I found it both, and 

 most of the walking, as usual in these hills, very labor- 

 ious for the soft, boggy holding and the long, tussocky 



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