362 
HOURS AMONG ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 
various disjected masses seemed poised as if ready to fall on the slope of the 
mountain. An eminence called the Gyess, evidently Trappean, rises about two 
miles beyond and mounts to the height of about 800 feet perpendicular with a 
sublime effect. As I returned in the twilight, I thought this scene, where the 
sprightly Severn foams among the rocky fragments, and dashes on as if thus 
early to attest her “ swift” career, approaching even to grandeur. It is certainly 
the best between Llanidloes and Plinlimmon. 
The road now winds at the foot of a hill which appears a natural Oak-forest, 
and, contrasted with the purple Heath peering out at every ^interval, and the bare 
or golden Gorsy hills beyond, although very dwarf, presents a verdant and 
extremely refreshing appearance to the eye, intermixed as it is with glowing 
wild flowers of several species, and the bright ruby berries of the Alpine 
Bramble. 
We now enter upon a series of barren uplands, interspersed with spots of bog 
and marsh, here and there crossing a rocky cwm whose Rushy prill splashes down 
among the Ferns and underwood, and occasionally passing patches of road little 
better than quagmires. The pleasing view, however, repays the trouble of the 
ride, for Plinlimmon, sullen, black, and surly, with his long array of frowning, 
bleak, barren and cloud-wreathed promontories, now appears full in front, while 
the Severn, reduced to a mountain torrent, is seen chafing the stones in the deep 
hollow below; and here and there she timidly pauses in a deep silent pool with 
ferruginous-tinged rocks about her, as if considering her future destiny, or anxious 
to retrace her steps to the Heathy turbaries waving with downy Cotton-grass. 
Having ridden more than nine miles, we approached close to the margin of the 
river, here extremely shallow among masses of stones, and a low dismal shealing, 
called Blaen Hafren, presented itself to view. At this farm it was necessary to 
leave our Horses, for here Plinlimmon actually commenced, and no vestige of 
shelter in any other form or shape is to be met with on this side of his kingdom 
of bog and mist. We therefore braced up our nerves for the ascent. Just above 
Blaen Hafren the infant Severn passes a barrier of Schistose rock penetrated with 
Trappean veins, about thirty feet high, in a picturesque manner which deserves 
to be delineated, as it might make a very pretty sketch. The stream, concen¬ 
trated almost to a spout by continued attrition, has worn a deep gully in the 
rock, down which it falls for some feet, and then plunges into a singular black 
and deep circular hollow, caused by the incessant whirling and agitation of the 
water. From this hollow, which seems like the track left by some monstrous 
Leviathan in the stone, the waters gently emerge, and in a silver stream roll 
dulcetly over the lower ledge of the rock, forming a small cascade, which breaks 
upon and curls round gigantic masses of Trappean rock hurled from the steeps 
above at some ancient period, and now lying mementoes of the furious water- 
