gelleu is Nanneau Park, the ancient seat of the family of that name, now of the Vaughans. The road is by a steep ascent, and the house stands on very high ground: it was but an old indifferent building. The present possessor, Sir Robert, has erected a new and handsome mansion, which appears to great advantage from the elevated scite, and the rich woods that clothe the different parts of the park.*

In the upper part of the park is the remains of a British post it is a high insolated rock, encircled with a wall of stones, the common fortification of our rude ancestors, called Moel Orthrum, or the Hill of Oppression. This park is celebrated for thẻ ancient deer of the country, remarkably small but of exquisite flavour.

The traveller here cannot resist the invitation to look at nature in her fantastic wildness, as exhibited in the celebrated falls of the Cayne and the Mawddach. The weather for several days had been prodigiously stormy, and consequently favourable

are shewn hear the abbey, built by Yetryd ap Edwin; and taken and demolished soon after A. D. 1116, by Euean ap Cadwyan and Meredydd ap Bleydden. Vid. Powel, p. 150.

* But Mr. Pennant when he observed, "That this was the highest situation of any gentleman's house in Britain,” Vol. II. p. 97; did not recollect that many parts of the kingdom, which form a much less angle with the plane of the horizon, are higher from the level of the sea, than those that form a greater. The land gradually rises as we poceed from the ocean; and it is probable, from this consideration, that the table land called Ridgeway in Warwickshire, is the highest part of this kingdom.

for seeing them to the highest advantage. Whoever visits these scenes in the drought, that frequently accompanies the most pleasing time for travelling, will be totally disappointed; for several of these falls will have vanished; and the person by whose description the traveller has been allured to the spot, lie under the imputation of misrepresentation or of high colouring.

Proceeding northwards up the vale of the Maw, at Doly Melynllin, six miles from Dolgelleu, is a house inhabited by Counsellor Maddox; here, turning to the left up a steep acclivity, the eye meets the furious course of the Garfa, a wide mountain torrent dashing its waters from rock to rock through a thicket of various kinds of underwood, meeting with short interruptions till it arrives at a lofty precipice; down this it rushes in separate channels fifty feet into the pool beneath, shaded by lofty. trees, that give the waters a dark appearance, and the cataract its name, Rhaiadr ddu: here, struggling and foaming against the fragments of stone it has brought in its violent passage, in wild uproar, it is soon lost to the spectator in the thick woods below. A noble pendant birch of uncommon size overhangs the centre of the fall, and forms a high finish to this romantic scene.

A

A bridge is thrown across the river called Pont ar garfa, which conducts you to another cascade, formed by the junction of the Maw and Eden. lofty angular wooded hill, corresponding with the glens through which these waters fall, forms the fork

of the rivers; and is not unlike many of those scenes described by travellers in the wilds of America. But these were only introductions to other scenes of grandeur, with which nature has every where enriched this richly varied country.

Crossing a lofty slate mountain with numerous oaks on the right and left, called Tylyn Gwladws, with its opposite, Cwm Yssam, we descended into the deepened vale, through which the Mawddach flows. The mountains on both sides, dark with the umbrageous shade of beech and oak, which almost completely cover their declivities, except the brown crags sometimes making an appearance through the verdant clothing, formed a fine contrast with the naked country before us.

A difficult path, through wooded dingles, soon brought us to the river. Though precluded from the sight of the cataract, by the sylvan shades of this fairy region, our ears were assailed by the noise of these troubled waters. The latent falls of the Cayne and the Mawddach were now distinctly heard, in an gry roar, tumbling from ledge to ledge; while the sounds reverberated from the mountains' sides, like. distant thunder, directed our steps to the Pistil y Cayne, (or the spout of the river Cayne.) This is no less than the whole river, in one uniform sheet, dashing down a perpendicular declivity of near two hundred feet, in full stream, into the deep rocky bason, or excavation formed by the violence of the water. But this magnificent object appears to the greatest advantage from below, by crossing a truly alpine

bridge, formed of the trunk of an immense oak laid from rock to rock over a narrow dark chasm; through which the torrent rushes from the pool into the glen beneath.

From this situation the view is immensely grand. The prodigious height of the cataract to its first fall; the chasm over which the bridge is placed; its second descent through the rocky fissures; its mural front and sides, with trees here and there relieving the brown rock; the thick wooded glen, shaded by ancient oak and beech, with a profusion of underwood, through which the waters force their course, hoarse murmuring from rock to rock, till they mingle with Mawddach a few hundred yards below; combine to form a species of the picturesque, that may be equalled, but cannot be surpassed. Three hundred yards distant from this, is the fall of the Mawddach; which, though in the same enchanting style of romantic beauty, yet retains a peculiar character distinct from every other cataract we had seen, This is a remark that may be extended to the greater part of the scenery of Wales; which by new combinations of objects, and exhaustless variety of colouring, furnishes perpetual sources of novelty and entertainment to the Devotee of Nature.

This fall is more exposed to the day. A vista opens through woods to a bare mountain, enclosed by others, rising with salient angles for eight hundred feet high; over which, by three falls of about thirty feet descent each, with full stream the river rolls into a deep concavity: whence again issuing,

it reassumes its violence, and rages over a congeries of craggy rocks, till joined by the impetuous Cayne, and is only heard in the distant woods. Though this was so materially different from the former, we were not less gratified: the Pystil is romantic, but that of the Mawddach is magnificently grand.

Mr. Pennant observes, what we should wish to see, "That in the nakedness of winter, there is an eminence, whence these two cataracts might be seen at once, exhibiting through the trees a piece of scenery as uncommon as it is grand."

Retiring from these lovely scenes, we regained the road at Llan Elltyd turnpike. At this place the tide flows to a considerable height; and a number of small craft, with a few large vessels, are built. A brig of about two hundred tons was now upon the stocks, and others of inferior size; but vessels of any considerable tonnage are obliged to be launched about the equinoxes, to take the advantage of the high vernal and autumnal tides, for floating over the bar of Barmouth.

From Llan Elltyd to Barmouth is ten miles of the best and most beautiful road in the kingdom. The road winds round the hill opposite to Dolgelleu; and is formed with great labour, on a shelf of the rock, through the hanging woods, crossing a handsome stone bridge over the Mawddach, just where it joins the Onion. The expanse of water now becomes considerable, and at high tide occupies the whole of the vale; putting on the appearance of a large lake, enveloped with mountains. The waters