BOTANICAL TOURS IN WALES. 215 
the explanation of so extraordinary a circumstance, I cannot pre- 
sume to satisfy him.” Our author however states another cir- 
cumstance, nearly as wonderful as this, viz. ‘‘ that in two places 
in Scotland, the one near the eastern and the other near the 
western sea, the fish called mullets possess the same defect, hay- 
ing no left eye.” 
The lake thus noticed by Giraldus is understood to be the 
small lake Llyn-y-Dywarchen (the Pool of the Sod), about a 
couple of miles from Beddgelert, and reported to be about as 
large as a good-sized horsepond. Here the floating island is said 
to be still in existence (only a small piece of the turbary detached 
from the bank), and it bears a small willow, and does occasionally 
shift its station. As the entire extent of this lake is very small, 
we must consider the floating island, with the cattle carried to 
a distant part of the lake, as a poetical embellishment, like the 
description of Merionethshire by the same author, who says that 
the mountains of this country were both high and perpendicular, 
and in many places so grouped together that shepherds talking 
or quarrelling on their summits could scarcely meet in a whole 
day’s journey. (See ‘ Phytologist,’ p. 33, N.S.) The lake, or 
pool, it appears, does contain a floating island, but no author 
states that it supplies pasturage for sheep and herds of cattle ; 
the shepherds and their flocks are the amusing creations of the 
traveller, who appears to have exercised a traveller’s liberty. 
Mr. Pennant, without giving his authority, says that the lake 
remarkable for the one-eyed fish is My ae ae one of the most 
elevated lakes in Wales, and more famous for producing rare 
plants,—as Lobelia Dortmanna, Subularia aquatica, [soetes lacus- 
* tris, and such-like,—than for containing fish of any sort. One of 
our crabby chroniclers (is it Speed?) tells us that we had better 
believe Giraldus, than take the trouble of disproving the mar- 
vellous account by going there to see. From this district the 
Crusaders travelled to Ruthlan (Rhuddlan) and St. Asaph, and 
thence by Chester to Shrewsbury. Conway was not celebrated 
at this early period. The ruthless conqueror of Wales had not 
then arisen, and the magnificent castles, towers, and walls of Car- 
narvon, Beaumaris, and Conway had not yet been founded. Wales 
then belonged to the Welsh; or they paid at the most but a no- 
minal subjection to the King of England as their superior. Castles 
there were then in Wales (in Girald’s times), but their ruins 
