Scenes in North Wales

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CAERNARVONSHIRE. This is not only the most mountainous and picturesque of the six northern shires of Wales, but retains more distinct characteristics of a peculiar people, and greater primitiveness of customs and manners than any of the remaining counties. Here the Cambrian Alps are seen in all the dignity...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CAERNARVONSHIRE. This is not only the most mountainous and picturesque of the six northern shires of Wales, but retains more distinct characteristics of a peculiar people, and greater primitiveness of customs and manners than any of the remaining counties. Here the Cambrian Alps are seen in all the dignity and sublimity attached to space restricted only by the grand natural boundaries of mountain, lake, wood, and river. The district included between the mountains and the sea, as well as the whole promontory of Lleyn, consists of fertile land, enjoys an agreeable and cheerful aspect, and. is adorned with the seats of many wealthy landed proprietors. From the highest part of this inclining plain, a surface, possessing an endless variety of form, swells with inconceivable rapidity, nor ceases until it attains the vast height of three thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet above the sea in its ambitious throws. This point, called Y Wydclffa, the Conspicuous, is the summit of Suowdon, and the loftiest pinnacle in ancient Britain. Two neighbouring rivals, Carneddau David and Llewellyn, seem to dispute the lofty throne, and reach within a hundred feet of the ancient Cairn which crowns the hoary head of the great monarch of Snowdonia. The greatest length of Caernarvonshire, i. e. in a direction north and south, is forty- five miles, and its mean average breadth about CAERNARVON CASTLE. SNOWDON . BANGOR CATHEDRAL. twenty. It is watered by several rivers, whose rocky beds abound in noble cataracts, as well as in scenery of the most delicate and fascinating character. The Conway is probably the richest in each kind of subject; the Llugwy, Lledder, and Ogwen, preserve their bold romantic natures until their noisy spirits are deep in the bosom of the ocean buried. Perh...