BOTANICAL TOURS IN WALES. 213 
his journey through Wales was accomplished. This valiant church- 
man, like our author, the learned Archdeacon, appears from the 
following anecdote to have been a humorist. After he and his 
party had toiled up a rather steep acclivity in North Wales, where 
there are many such, and being a little blown with his exertions, 
he asked one of his rather pursy attendants to whistle. This was 
a feat exceeding difficult in their condition. During their en- 
joyment of this jocose raillery, some one remarked that a black- 
bird was just then whistling, and further said he was sure it was 
not the nightingale. The Archbishop coolly remarked, that the 
nightingale took wise counsel, and did not visit Wales, but that 
he and his party had followed unwise counsel, for that they had 
not only penetrated into Wales, but had travelled through it 
from south to north. The Archdeacon seems to have relished 
this pleasantry, and relates it as a proof of the good humour of 
his superior. Many great men of our own, and of a more recent 
time than this, have had remarks respecting them recorded of a 
less creditable and more undignified nature than this of the Arch- 
bishop’s. As our business is with North Wales, we only notice 
some of the singularities noticed by the Archdeacon in this part 
of the Prmecipality. ‘The Teivi,’ he informs his readers, “ has 
another singular particularity, being the only river in Wales, or 
even in England, that has beavers. In Scotland they are said 
to be found in one river, but are very scarce.” We shall meet 
with another singularity noticed with the same reference to Scot- 
land, which in these days was a terra incognita to every South 
Briton, whether Celt or Saxon. Our author then details the 
modes whereby these creatures conveyed materials from the 
woods to the river, viz. by lymg down on their back while some 
of their companions laid a beam on the prostrate beast, and then 
dragged him with his load to the place where they were to erect 
their dwellings (castles, the Archdeacon calls them) : he gives a 
long account of their defence of these strongholds. The party 
slept the first night after entering North Wales at Towyn (it 
_ may be interesting to such of our readers as mean to visit North 
Wales to know the route by which these distinguished travellers 
journeyed), and the next night rested at Llanfair, near Harlech. 
As he does not notice the castle, it may be presumed that it did 
not then exist, or, if there was any defensible erection on the 
rock where the remains of the castle now are, it was in his time 
