HOURS AMONG THE ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 
191 
buried itself deep in gloom, with mingled feelings. All was dark and horrific 
above, and from the tempest of ruin scattered round, it was evidently unsafe to 
penetrate too far into the demon s den, many of whose weighty masses of cliff 
seemed to hang tremblingly in the air, among the vapours that veiled their ser¬ 
rated pinnacles, and I was not sorry to be safe at their base, instead of treading 
the dizzy verge of their summits to seek an outlet. Below me Llyn Idwat 
lay pillowed still as death in his mountain tomb, a pall of excessive darkness, 
impenetrable to the eye, spread over its uncertain boundaries from the over-hanging 
precipices, above which the kingly crest of Carnedd David, rising with stately 
grandeur in the ebon sky, seemed to exercise a solemn guardianship. As we 
descended the slippery rocks I seized specimens of the Cambrian Poppy ( Meco - 
nopsis Cambrica ), starting forth from the gaping crevices, the beautiful Saxifraga 
oppositifolia , S. hypnoides , and its affinities, here profusely carpetting the masses 
of rock by the splashing torrent, and the red-tinged foliage of that constant rock- 
lover Rhodiola rosea. We now skirted the black Llyn to where, amidst stones of 
all shapes and sizes— 
“ As if the moon had shower’d them down in spite $” 
its waters reluctantly growled with hoarse voice a sad adieu to their mountain 
cradle. A bridge, rough and rugged as the scene about it, now offered its last 
churlish aid, and my guide, who had told of travellers perishing without hope on 
Moel Siabod and other mountains about Capel Curig in storm, cold, and snow, 
having now emptied his budget, and scenting the termination of his duties, though 
yet afar off, sped on far in front to light his pipe at the next dwelling near Llyn 
Ogwen, and left me to my meditations. 
Yet even in summer, bright, fervid, and glorious, without a cloud to check the 
insufferable brightness, one may incautiously get entangled in the woody vallies, 
as in antumn upon the mountains. One afternoon, straying on the margin of an 
extensive wood, bordered with showering Boses, bright Orchideoe and numerous 
other plants, now watching the progress of a marbled Butterfly ( Hipparchia 
galathea ), among the pink Trefoils, now following the devious flight of a “ chalk- 
hill blue” (Polyommatus Corydon\ among the scattered bushes, I imperceptibly 
got involved in “ the navel of this hideous wood.” To find path where path was 
none, was a tedious process, till, all inlet and e'ven outlet failing, I was fairly 
made a captive in the thorny maze. Wherever the least opening appeared it 
was sure to terminate in a dense thicket of thorns and brambles, while the foliage, 
just deep enough to smother one over head and ears, but offering no large timber 
for an observing climb, was peculiarly tantalizing. I turned, stopt, pushed on, 
crept,—dashed franticly among the underwood till I was covered with thorns— 
all was vain; the sun rapidly descending to his evening couch, now shot vividly 
