216 BOTANICAL TOURS IN WALES. 
differ from those erected at a later period. All are now in ruins, 
both the Welsh strongholds and the imposing structures of Ed- 
ward the First; their remains exist as monuments and evidences 
of the mutability of earthly things. We hope our readers will 
excuse our brief notice of this venerable tourist, the first who 
published an account of his native country, of which he was one 
of the most distinguished ornaments. We may also state that 
his work is rather moral than physical; he deals chiefly with 
the religious, political, and social state of his countrymen, and 
only incidentally notices the physical state and productions of 
his country. Respect for the memory of a learned and zealous 
churchman, and especially a desire to do honour to the first 
Welsh tourist, have induced us to introduce our notice of all the 
botanical tours in North Wales with this very incomplete account — 
of the Itinerary of Giraldus Cambrensis. 
The first professedly botanical tour in Wales was undertaken 
by Mr. Thomas Johnson, better known as the learned editor and 
emendator of Gerarde’s Herbal than as a traveller. In those days 
a journey to Wales was more formidable than a journey to the 
Alps or the Pyrenees is in our times, and a man who had accom- 
plished the Scottish or Welsh tour was regarded with consider- 
able deference by his less enterprising neighbours. 
Johnson appears to have been the first Englishman who tra- 
velled into many and remote parts of his native land, solely with 
a view of ascertaining its indigenous or native produce. His tour 
into Wales is the last of a series of excessively rare tracts, which 
have recently been elegantly reprinted in facsimile, and are ob- 
tainable at the office of our Journal. British botanists are m- 
debted both to the publisher (Mr. Pamplin) and to the editor 
(Mr. Ralph) of these interesting tracts, for an elegant edition of 
what few lovers of English botany could ever have any rational 
prospect of even seeing. The only known copy of the originals 
is in the British Museum, being part of the valuable library of 
Sir Joseph Banks, who bequeathed both it and his Herbarium to 
the great national collection. This series of tracts, as reprinted, 
is entitled ‘Opuscula omnia Botanica Thome Johnsoni,’ etc., 
and contains the following :— 
1. Iter Plantarum investigationis ergo susceptum a decem — 
sociis in agrum Cantianum (Kent), Anno Domini 1629, Julii 13. 
Ericetum Hamstedianum, sive Plantarum ibi crescentium obser- 
