CLEAR WATERS 



profit-seeking middlemen all down the vale of 

 Towy. 



Locked up in the chambers of the London County 

 Council are the engineer's plans of a mighty scheme 

 for tunnelling the mountain watershed, and carrying 

 the waters of the Towy to mingle with those of the 

 Yrfon, and turn the beautiful lower valley of the Wye 

 tributary into a vast lake for the supply of London. 

 I have seen these plans made many years ago, for a 

 landowner nearly concerned was a friend of mine, 

 and showed me a draft of them. There was no secret 

 about the survey or the scheme. It still remains 

 one of the future alternatives for London. The 

 scenery of the Towy valley for the whole long way 

 from the high moors to Llandovery, and the charm 

 of the clear tempestuous river itself in its green, 

 woody, and mountain-bordered vale, abide always 

 in the memory of those of us who have known it. 

 Swollen at Twm-Shon-Catti by the Doithea, it is 

 quite a lusty river that a few miles lower down frets 

 amid almost ceaseless avenues of verdure through the 

 widespreading parks and pastures of Neuadd-fawr. 

 ' Heavens ! what a river,' would cry any angler who 

 caught a glimpse of it from any point. I speak under 

 correction as to the immediate present. But the un- 

 restrained fish raider has made a burning example here 

 of what even a sparse Welsh community can do when 

 it sets its mind to it in the way of cleaning out a river 

 that has never been protected, both of its stock of trout 

 and its annual run of sewin. 



Below Llandovery the Towy utterly changes both in 

 habit and circumstances. All down its green historic 

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