z8o DECEMBER 



meant to imply, I am not sure, but whether his phrase 

 was more critical or complimentary, it conveyed at any 

 rate a wistful wonder. 



2. 



In an old country and England is often called The 

 Old Country the scene, even the landscape itself, is 

 man-made, and therefore over the greater part of the 

 land homely, with hamlets, hedges and homesteads, 

 canals, roads, and tidy fields and woods ; but there are a 

 few scenes where the man-making has taken a different 

 turn. The landscape has been re-made by the destruction 

 of homes and farms and the slow accretion of centuries 

 of kindly living. The most salient example is perhaps the 

 Elan Valley, dammed by the City Fathers of Birmingham 

 to supply their children with water. They have half 

 created a scene that suggests primal wildness, if you can 

 forget for a minute the metalled road that takes you to 

 its heart. 



&quot; Wild &quot; is almost a constant epithet of Wales ; and 

 well deserved. Wildness repossesses the country at the 

 slightest excuse. I know an almost deserted garden near 

 the Devil s Bridge which is almost elemental. Even the 

 exotic rhododendrons have remembered their origin on 

 the roof of the world, near the springs of the Brahma 

 putra. Nearby grows the Welsh poppy, known to few, 

 and its rare seekers run the danger of the transplanters 

 of edelweiss, as has been tragically proved. Though the 

 refuse of mine and factory may destroy the salmon and 

 vegetations in the rivers, and in some measure change 

 their very nature, the hills and valleys keep their ancient 

 wonder and some at least of their native fauna. The 

 polecat, extinct elsewhere, hunts her prey in the woods 



