366 
HOURS AMONG ROCKS AND CLOUDS. 
heaps in clamourous exultation, and the hollow glens had hoarsely echoed their 
thanks in exulting reply. Alas ! we were indeed reckoning without our host, 
who seized upon the Lion’s share for himself. Scarcely had we mounted the 
higher ridges, than conflicting blasts shook us about like Thistle-down, and vain 
for some time were our efforts to get on. At last, in close phalanx we pressed 
along for a huge cairn we saw rising before us, and, tacking about towards its 
leeward side, laughed at the baffled blast. Down, in the thoughtlessness of the 
moment, fell two or three upon the side of the cairn, and amongst the rest the 
sherry-bearer. The wine was now called for—when, with dismay and confusion, 
our companion produced from his pocket the sealed neck of the bottle, but its 
nether part, to our sad mortification, had sustained a compound fracture as he 
flopped down upon the pointed stones, and the wine was thus “ left behind,” a 
libation to the Crows, 
At a distance Plinlimmon appears to constitute a long abrupt ridge, which on 
a nearer view seems to have five or more distinct points rising a little higher 
than the general mass—these were formerly used as beacons, and are now covered 
with carneddau (piled heaps of stones)—-hence the origin of the Welch name Pen 
Lumon, or the five beacons. This name, however, would appear not to be very 
ancient, as in Giraldus Cambrensis these ridges, with other subject masses 
that stretch on to the Teivy lakes, bear merely the general name of the Elennith 
mountains. Having once entered upon the outworks of Plinlimmon, all definite 
shape disappears, and a series of dismal winding defiles and dark Hog’s-back 
ridges appear in wearying succession, without a single rising pile of uncovered 
rock to break the monotony, while treacherous bogs, concealed within the turf, 
plunge the heedless stranger in their plashy embrace as he urges on his weary 
way. Add to this, a wreathy mist descending in a moment obscures every 
object, and confuses the ideas of a stranger to the ground to such a degree, that, 
vainly attempting to note his devious progress up the dark and deep defiles, he 
would be likely to attempt a return in the very opposite direction from that 
which he sought; while wind and rain, almost constant concomitants of this 
aquarian district, might complete a scene of disaster difficult to. escape from. 
Hence a guide becomes indispensable on this mountain, and the difficulties of 
access to it enabled Owain Glundwr to maintain himself here with a small 
force for a considerable time. 
I can only compare Plinlimmon to a number of hills with their subject ridges 
and passes penetrated by a Serpent-host of streamlets. These gloomy mounds 
are piled confusedly around a wide central depression or elevated plain, now con¬ 
stituting a moss or turbary, covered with Heath, Rushes, and various species of 
Vaccinium and Lycopodium. This is intersected by the hand of Nature with 
deep gulfs and an endless series of ditches and hollows, formed by the powerful 
