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The sole material of the part suspended is iron. As I approached it-it was towards evening-I could see nothing but the towers. And when you distinguish the fine delicate tracery of the iron chains and supporters, it seems as if it were nothing but gause or cobweb, compared with the mighty masses of masonry on which it rests. The vehicles travelling over it look as if they were suspended in the air. I went down to the shore below, and as I looked up, it seemed to span a whole third part of the heavens. A celebrated lady, (since dead,*) in speaking of this stupendous work, said that she first saw it from the Isle of Anglesea, so that it was relieved against the lofty mountains of North Wales; and she added in a strain of eloquent and poetical comparison familiar to her, that "Snowdon seemed to her a fit background for the Menai Bridge."

JULY 4. To-day I made an excursion down to Caernarvon, through the pass of Llanberis, to Capel Curig (Kerrig) and back again to Bangor, and on to Holyhead.

At Caernarvon is another old castle of Edward I. in ruins: the town too, like Conway, is surrounded by a wall with towers. The walls of the castle

* Mrs. Hemans.

are very thick, in some places ten feet. I should judge the space enclosed must be 1500 by 150 feet. There are several huge towers, one of which I ascended to the top: the stone steps much worn. It consisted of two walls, with narrow, dark passages all around between them. On the inner wall, abutments on which the beams and floors of the successive stories were supported, were evident and also the fireplaces. An anteroom to one of these central apartments, (about twelve by seven feet,) was pointed out as the birthplace of Edward's son, the first Prince of Wales. It was thus, as history says, and Welsh tradition still holds, that Edward I. claimed the promise which he had obtained of these intractable mountaineers, that they would submit to a native-born prince.

This is indeed a place in which to muse and moralize. Who can look upon the humblest hearthstone of a ruinous and deserted cottage, such as I have sometimes seen, even in our own countryour only ruins-without reading on it a whole history of human affections? The hearthstone seems everywhere like a tablet of the heart. But here kings and nobles have come, with the tramp of horses, and the blast of trumpets, and the ringing of armour. Here proud men have bid defiance, and brave men have died. Here fair women

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have mingled in feast and song, or started and turned pale, at the summons of the besieger's horn. And now all is silent and desolate. Grass overgrows the courtyard, and waves from the tops of the walls and towers. The birds build nests in these turrets, and chirp about them as if they were grand old places for aviaries; and the visiter comes, not to feast, but to meditate. What different scenes have passed here! what thoughts have been revolved, around these lonely, deserted, and scarce discerned firesides! what affections have here kindled and glowed, and withered and faded away! what footsteps have been upon these rough stairs! Enough! they have been the footsteps of men! Light and joyous hearts had they borne, though they had not been the hearts of princes. And heavy hearts had they borne, though they had not been carried wounded and bleeding from the battlestrife.

Everything about this old castle shows the purpose for which, mainly, it was constructed; small apertures, rather than windows, out of which arrows or other missives could be thrown, and opening inward to a space in the wall large enough for a warder to stand; three or four narrow loopholes on each side of the great gate of entrance, for the purpose of reconnoitering those who ap

proached; and, inside of the gate, the groove in which the portcullis slided up and down.

I am satisfied that in order to gain any approach to an idea of these things without seeing them, one must not be content with barely reading the description, but must lay down the measurement upon some familiar spot. For instance, the walls of this castle, I judged, from a rough measurement, to be two hundred rods in circuit; and they are nearly eight feet thick, and perhaps thirty feet high; and the principal tower may be ninety or one hundred feet high and fifty feet in diameter. So of the Menai Bridge, or of Eaton Hall. I am sure I got a far more impressive idea of Niagara falls, and probably far more just, by laying it down on a landscape three quarters of a mile in extent, and then conceiving a precipice of one hundred and sixty feet in height, and an ocean pouring over it.

Except the sublimest, I suppose that every description of mountain scenery is to be found in Wales; unless it be, also, the contrast of hills and mountains to the perfect levels of our New-England intervals and river banks-like which I have seen nothing. The pass of Llanberis and the road from Capel Curig are almost level, while the wildest mountains rise almost from the very roadside, on either hand. There is every variety of form— steep, swelling, bald, shaggy; massy and pointed

SCENERY IN NORTH WALES.

35

tops; sides sometimes ploughed by the mountain streams and sometimes only seamed by the trickling rills while around their eternal battlements and turrets, the light mist floated, every moment varying its shapes, now unveiling some stupendous ledge or crag, and then shrouding it in thick darkness. The pass of Llanberis is part of the Snowdon range; but old Snowdon himself was all day enveloped entirely in clouds.

I observed one curious effect of wind in this pass. As I was walking along the road where it is cut out of a ledge of rock, and leaves a deep defile below, I heard a noise on the lower side, as of a rushing stream chafing its base. I stepped to the wall at the roadside, and perceived that it was, not water, but wind-a mountain gust so powerful, that it was necessary to hold on my hat as I leaned over. I stepped back but four feet, and all was quiet—the air was still. I repeated the experiment several times, with the same result.

For another description of scenery in Wales, imagine something like the following: A deep dingle, sinking almost beneath you, at the roadside, with a little lane winding down through hawthorn hedges to one or two cottages half covered with ivy and overshadowed with trees; just beyond, rising and boldly swelling up from the chasm below, a noble sweep of hills, cultivated to the very

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