3 i2 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



plenty of room for dark hues too, to be caught in the hollows. 

 It brings the sunsets which are the glory of the countries 

 that suffer from a dry soil ; sunsets in which the clouds are 

 twisted into rough fantastic forms, that blaze and smoulder 

 and blacken all at once in the west, like whin in a heath 

 fire. Slips of sky between them lie like strips of downland 

 grass. The riot of colour sends a mild vibration across to 

 the east, where clouds, flying from a wind that at the sunset 

 hour begins to fail in the pursuit, are suffused with an even 

 and gentle colour. With colour and brightness the wind 





THE PEAKS OF CADER IDRIS 



itself seems to be endowed, just as the east wind with 

 the monotony of colourless clouds on unbroken skies. 



If we probe for reasons, the reason lies in the dews that 

 come from the west. The jagged highlands of the Lake 

 Country, the peaks of Cader Idris and Snowdon, comb out 

 of the west wind the mass of its moisture. The rain is 

 deposited from the moment the wind meets the first land, 

 or even the viewless islands to which the Irish people of 

 Clare and Galway gaze in some strange and mystic faith. 

 When it passes these lands and moves across eastern 

 England it holds nothing more heavy than showers. Over 

 the flat plain of the Eastern Counties it passes almost dry- 

 shod. 



