UNLUCKY DAYS IN WALES. 235 



the murder of a prince by his ruthless guardian, for ever 

 doomed to the loss of one eye ; the guide books tell you 

 that, as there are no fish left in the lake, it is impossible- 

 to verify the legend. Unfortunately for the unity of this 

 touching narrative — one does not like to have one's idols 

 shattered — Lake Idwall on this Whit-Sunday was consider- 

 ably dimpled by the rising of fleshly trout, and one fish leap- 

 ing a somersault out of the water to all appearances was not 

 the victim of optical defect. Still it is a horribly gloomy 

 pool, dark and remote amongst the mountains, and frowned 

 upon by savage rocks. 



Lake Ogwen is more open, and more easily accessible, 

 and there is one house tolerably near. You fish the lake 

 from a boat, and in the absence of an oarsman — and there is- 

 no such thing in the locality — you heave a block of granite 

 attached to a rope over the windward gunwale, and let the 

 shallop drift. 



On the Whit-Monday morning with which we are now 

 concerned the mountains were hooded as if with gigantic- 

 masses of cotton-wool, curling slowly into fantastic figures,- 

 dispersing and gathering, stealing down towards the valley,, 

 trailing over the faces of the rocks, and performing a 

 thousand weird movements. The wind began to blow from, 

 the gorges, cutting you like a knife. Having pulled the 

 clumsy dingy half a mile in the eye of the wind, I was not 

 slightly provoked to find the quickening blasts converting 

 me, as I stood waiting for a lull, into a sail, and the boat, 

 notwithstanding the granite drag, hastening back at a pro- 

 digious rate, and threatening shipwreck upon a cluster of 

 serrated crags at the lower end. The affair ended in an 

 hour's furious gale, to which the hapless angler was exposed,. 



