198 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



amidst the rush of waters, roaring so that thunder might 

 pass over us unheeded — when we are overwhelmed with the 

 grandeur and majesty of the scene, " dazzled and drunk with 

 beauty," that we feel most deeply our own insignificance. 



The Insect-Hunter may, perhaps, never have a reader who 

 has roamed, or who even will roam, where he next bent his 

 footsteps, though Cwm Elan may be better known than it is ; and 

 even now it is known, though but little admired or toured. There 

 is a gentleman's residence, known by the same name beyond 

 the pass, and another beautiful place embosomed in wood, called 

 Nantgwilt : leaving these behind, and proceeding towards 

 Rhayader, you enter the stupendous pass of Cwm Elan. After 

 feasting himself upon the scene, the Insect-Hunter scaled the 

 rocky mountain to the left ; it was a toilsome and wearisome 

 ascent. As he ever and anon sat down to rest and refresh 

 himself with gazing on the scene below, he oft repeated 

 — " I am not what I have been ;" and, in truth, he was 

 not : disappointment had stricken him, sickness had weakened 

 him ; limbs, once untiring, had lost their vigour — he was but as 

 the shadow of his former self. His eye dwelt on the landscape 

 beneath his feet ; as a map, the country was spread before him. 

 He traced the course of Elan up to the town of Rhayader, a 

 town through which the joyous Wye comes leaping to meet 

 Elan, his mountain-bride. Elan, though considerably the 

 larger stream, loses its name at the junction, and assumes 

 that of Wye. The Insect-Hunter gazed on the meeting of 

 the waters, and then followed them in imagination (for a moun- 

 tain concealed them from his eye), till they were united 

 with the waters of Severn, and lost in the Bristol Channel. 

 These beautiful rivers, Wye and Severn, rise side by side, on 

 the mighty Plinlimmon, and side by side they flow into the 

 ocean. The Severn makes a fine curve northward, passing 

 through Shrewsbury, then southward through Worcester and 

 Gloucester. The Wye runs southward through Rhayader, 

 Bualt, Hay, Hereford, Ross and Monmouth, and they again 

 unite at the entrance of the Bristol Channel. Here let the 

 reader supply a simile — two brothers — different courses 

 through life — old age — settle down together, &c. 



Time, which has clad the scene before and about me with 

 such surpassing majesty and loveliness, may, in days to come, 

 overthrow these features of ages by the tempestuous workings 



