Читать книгу Scenes in North Wales - G. N. Wright - Страница 8

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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 Wyddffa,” the Conspicuous, is the summit of Snowdon, 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 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.” Perhaps the placid lakes, notwithstanding the noiseless tenor of their lives, may find more worshippers than even the Conway’s majestic tide. Llynnyau Gwynant and Crafuant are the most graceful, perfect compositions; Llynnyau Ogwen and Idwel the most sublime.

The mountainous unequal surface of this county has not militated against the introduction of new and admirable lines of road. It is probable that the facility of obtaining a very durable stone, at the cost of removal only, has encouraged the construction of the most beautiful and interesting public avenues in the kingdom. The Holyhead commissioners have carried the British Simplon through the flinty rocks of Ogwen and along the wind-swept valley of Francòn. The county engineers have diminished the terrors of Penmaen Mawr by descending from the beetling cliff to a judicious and secure path along the margin of the sea; and the new road through the pass of Llanberis has rendered these scenes of “pleasing horror” accessible to the most timid and nervous, who are frequently the best and truest appreciators of such mysterious and sublime formations.