200 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



pursuit was salmon, which were just now on the move. Unfor- 

 tunately not one was captured while he was there ; he cannot, 

 therefore, give a circumstantial account of the affair, but the 

 zest with which the sport was followed was highly animating. 

 About 100 yards above the bridge — it was at Rhayader-y- 

 Gowy — the Wye falls five feet, in one unbroken sheet, over a 

 ledge of rocks, and thirty yards below the bridge about as 

 much over a similar ledge : the salmon make nothing of leaping 

 these falls in their way up the river. In the very midst of the 

 agitated water, directly beneath the falls, the anglers were inces- 

 santly plying their lines, with what chance of success I know 

 not; but with one accord, at the sudden arrival of the fish, 

 butchers, bakers, shoemakers and blacksmiths had left their 

 various employments, and, with tucked-up shirt sleeves, had 

 joined in the animating pursuit. 



Chapter IX. 



[The Insect-Hunter again descanteth on Welsh mountains; he arriveth at 

 Llandegly.] 



The road from Rhayader, or more properly Rhayader- y- 

 Gowy, through Pen-y-bont to Llandegly, has little in it that is 

 worthy of remark. The Rhayader mountains present a cha- 

 racter wholly different from those I have noticed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Hay and Brecon ; these last are of gentle ascent 

 near the base, and carefully cultivated half way up their sides, 

 and above this limit are to be found sheep walks, which increase 

 in poverty, and give way to carex, heath, and maun pits on the 

 summits. The Rhayader mountains rise abruptly, are 

 generally beautifully wooded at the base, the wood decreas- 

 ing gradually with the ascent, and here and there intermingled 

 with bare grey rock, which, above the limit of wood, becomes 

 more apparent. The summits are peaty and wet, producing 

 heath, Carex, Eriopkoron, and Narthecium ossifragum, which 

 was now in blossom ; and afford wretched sheep walks. Again, 

 as we approach Pen-y-bont, but far beyond both this place and 

 Llandegly, we have before us quite another character of 

 mountain, highly cultivated two-thirds of* the height, and above 

 this an exquisitely rounded summit, smooth, covered with 

 velvet tuft, affording the finest possible pasturage for sheep. 



