Penrhyn Castle. 417 



former were originally bred from Robert Smith's 

 stock, crossed with rams from Hewitt, Sanday, and 

 Burgess. One season they were crossed with Cots- 

 wolds, but the result was a general ungainliness of 

 frame and lumpinesss in the shoulders. First-class 

 " Shrops" have been the latest introduction. They 

 required a short time to become acclimatized ; but 

 their mutton finds Welsh purchasers at all seasons, 

 which the Leicester fails to do. 



Pigs have also been successful prize-takers, and 

 many of them are sprung from a sow and two boars 

 bought at Earl Ducie's sale, and the progeny of one 

 of the sows alone made nearly 300/. 



A mile walk from the first lodge down the great 

 Parliamentary Road, for which Wales has to thank 

 the late Sir Henry Parnell, brought us to the village 

 of Llandegai. " Twenty -four hours ■ from London to 

 Holyhead" seems stamped on it yet, as, although the 

 grass is growing on the sides, the middle testifies how 

 carefully Telford must have executed the subpaving 

 and draining. Posterity has, however, to pay pretty 

 freely for its dashing, break-neck memories of the 

 Chester and Holyhead mails. Before road-making 

 rose to the dignity of a science, the late Lord Penrhyn 

 had made one from Capel Curig, which, by adopting 

 the base of the triangle for its route, brought grass 

 and grief to Conway ; and a picture in the castle re- 

 presents him pointing out on a map the intended route, 

 which spurned many of those valleys along which 

 Telford was content to creep. At Llandegai flower 

 worship seems to exercise the same manifold witchery 

 as the chirp of the knitting needles. The Virginian 

 creeper, the foreign currant, and the cotoniastns 

 cling round every porch, ready to burst into bloom 

 under a milder sky, and the hydrangea and fuchsia 

 are wont to peep in at many a lattice from " plaited 

 alleys of the trailing rose" half-way up the mountain.. 

 Passing up a dark-shaded avenue of yew-trees we 



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