By the aid of the excellent telescopes of the Telegraph, all the more
distant objects of attraction can be seen, and with a singular
mellowness. The South Stack Light-house is brought so near, although
about two miles off, as to make the individuality of persons in the
lantern (previously known) easily and amusingly recognisable. Should the
sky be unclouded and the weather propitious, the natural scenery that
presents itself will be surpassingly grand. The view of the vast
Snowdonian amphitheatre of mountains—
So shadowy, so sublime,
breaks like magic upon the eye, extending in one connected Alpine chain
from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel, the contour of which is
varied, at irregular intervals, by the numerous diversified peaks
towering above the rest, till they gradually advance to the summit of
Snowdon, and then uniformly declining, till they terminate in the North
horn of Cardigan Bay. The Isle of Anglesey, with her distant little
hills and coasts, spread like a map,
Lies smiling before you;
that time-honoured Isle—a land of chivalry, of exciting incident, of
music and of song, of venerable tradition and marvellous legend—the chief
seat of the ancient Druids—where the Princes of Wales had their Palace
for centuries. There the Picts, the Danes, the Irish, the Saxons, and
other warlike tribes,
All armed in rugged steel unfiled,
pursued their conquests with great ferocity; ravaging the Island with
fire and sword, blood and slaughter, their banners were
Fanned by conquest’s crimson wing,
and the hungry ravens reddened their beaks from the war of men. From
this mountainous throne may also be seen the Isle of Man; Wicklow, the
garden of Ireland; the mountains in the county of Down, near the Bay of
Dundrum; Bardsey Island; the Cumberland hills, and parts of the Highlands
of Scotland: the vast expanding waters of the Carnarvon Bay, St. George’s
Channel, and Holyhead Bay, roll before you. Below you lies the Pier on
Salt Island, with the Light-house on the extremity—the New Harbour, with
its whistling engines, bustling workmen, and prancing horses; contiguous
to which stand the modern mansions erected for the accommodation of those
whose intellectual brains, like a main-spring, keep the stupendous
machinery in operation, and whose engineering mappings and dottings, and
sketchings and plannings, keep this corner of the world wide awake—the
Old Harbour, with its vessels and smaller craft in different stages of
preparation, and packets busily preparing for immediate sail—the modest
Obelisk peeping over the town—the Skerry Rocks—the sea-washed South
Stack, and other objects of interest, open out on every side
perspicuously to the view. The painter would be at a loss upon what
particular spot to fix his eye; turn which way he will, some beauty,
variable and exhaustless, is before him; it is impossible for either the
artist or poet to describe, with a hope of doing anything like justice
to, so picturesque and varied a landscape. The impression is that of
singular wildness and solitude, stretching in a succession of prospects,
fading into distant softening vista, as agreeable to the eye as the
imagination. While standing on this promontory, your thoughts flow
poetically, although you have neither rhythm nor music in your
composition.
Having filled every cell in the lungs with exquisitely pure air, that
comes direct from a “high ethereal source”—air so uncorrupted as to be
met with only far, far from the haunts of men, and the hum of human
cities, we must now bid farewell to this enchanting and enchaining spot,
but the scene will leave an undying impression on the mind.
I love to stand upon the hill,
And gaze on the ocean wide;
See ships of commerce—not of war,
On her bright bosom glide.
But now before our eyes the mirror fades,
Yet our strain’d glance shall linger on the scene.