a glance at the Contour Book may perhaps explain. But the fashion
has been set, I think, by bicyclists, whom one really cannot blame
for shirking the hill that rises between Dolwyddelan and Maentwrog.
Here let me assure motorists that there is little reason why they
should miss the wild beauty of the moors above this point; the rolling
expanse of brown and purple bogland, the endless succession of hills,
the grand outline of Moel Siabod. For though the road is certainly
steep the surface is excellent, except for a mile or so above Blaenau
Festiniog, that strange town on the mountain ledge that entirely owes
its existence to the neighbouring quarries, and yet is more than a
mile long and has three railway stations. There is no need to brave
the hill again to return to Bettws, for the road by Maentwrog,
Penrhyndeudraeth, and the Pass of Aberglaslyn is one of the loveliest
in Wales, and though we shall come down the Pass by and by there is
no hardship in going over the ground twice. It is worth remembering,
too, that at Maentwrog it is possible, if time allows, to cross the
valley and approach the famous toy railway-line at its prettiest point,
Tan-y-Bwlch, where a lake lies hidden among the woods, and where we may
have tea on the grass close beside the water, facing a scene of rich
colouring and deep, cool shadows.
All this, however, is a digression. It is highly probable that the
great majority of motorists will look at the Contour Book and return
to Bettws from Dolwyddelan. They will have the advantage of seeing the
Lledr Valley from a new point of view.
Now in the Snowdon country there are three great passes through the
mountains to the sea: the Passes of Nant Ffrancon, Llanberis, and
Nant Gwynant combined with Aberglaslyn. It is hard to say which is
the most beautiful of the three; and it is quite imperative, and also
quite easy, to see them all by pursuing rather a zigzag course. Nant
Ffrancon is the route of the Holyhead Road and the nearest to Bettws:
so we will go down by Nant Ffrancon, and come up again by Llanberis on
the same day; and on the next start off again by way of Nant Gwynant
and Aberglaslyn, passing through Bedd Gelert.
The road climbs out of Bettws through a thick wood beside the rushing
Llugwy, and soon draws near the Swallow Falls.[7] This triple fall is
only a stone’s-throw from the road, and it is worth while to follow the
slippery path across the pine-needles, and stand for a moment in the
pricking spray watching the commotion. In the thick of the hubbub they
say the spirit of Sir John Wynne, which left this mortal coil early
in the seventeenth century, is being “purged, punished, and spouted
upon”; though I have never heard anything definite against him except
that he was “shrewd and successful.” He was a member of that Court of
the Marches of which we heard so much at Ludlow, and he left a very
valuable record of his family behind him.
This bit of country between Bettws and Capel Curig is one of the gems
of North Wales. Moel Siabod towers above us; and beyond it soon appears
that cloud-capped peak whose name quickens every Welsh heart--the
rallying-point of heroes, the symbol and stronghold of the liberties of
Wales. The finest view of Snowdon is from Capel Curig, where the double
peak is reflected in the double lake.
Our road, still climbing, turns to the right in Capel Curig and
takes us up into the heart of the hills, through a scene of splendid
desolation--bare heights, huge boulders tossed and heaped upon the
ground, jagged outlines, and dark sullen colours--a land that was
vastly disconcerting to those travellers of an earlier day whose
idea of beauty was “a smiling landscape.” As we reach the summit and
see the waters of Llyn Ogwen below us, sapphire-blue or lead-grey
according to circumstances, the great sides of Tryfaen and the Glydyrs
tower on the left. Beyond the lake Alla Wen rises steeply. “A horrid
spot of hills,” says a seventeenth-century writer. “The most dreadful
horse-path in Wales,” says Pennant; and that indeed it may well have
been before Telford came here to perform his miracles of engineering.
“The district through which the surveys were carried is mountainous,”
he says quietly; “and I found the existing roads very imperfect.” When
we have passed Llyn Ogwen, and the cottage where food is to be had if
necessary, and the sudden turning over the bridge, and are swinging
down the gentle slope of Nant Ffrancon high up on the mountain-side,
we must surely give nearly as much admiration to this road which
descends for ten miles with no steeper gradient than 1 in 15 as we give
to the wide Valley of the Beavers below us. Above us the mountain is
a mass of grey boulders, of scars and landslips; below us it sweeps
down precipitously to where the little Ogwen dances like a streak of
quicksilver. Presently we pass under the hideous excrescence of the
Penrhyn slate quarries, grey terraces of rubbish contrasting cruelly
with the glowing gorse of the opposite slopes; and then through the
equally hideous town of slate, Bethesda, the miners’ town, whose slate
walls, slate steps, and slate porches are enough, as Dr. Johnson, would
say, “to make a man hang himself.” Let us hurry on into the Cochwillan
Woods.
Very soon after passing the modern towers of Penrhyn Castle we reach
the town of Bangor, “which for the beauty of its situation, was called
Ban-cor, the high or conspicuous choir.” It is not a very inviting
place, nevertheless, and there is no need to pause here, for even the
cathedral is not beautiful. It has had a great deal to bear; for it
was burnt by Harold the Saxon, and again by King John, and again by
Owen Glyndwr; and no doubt the castle built by Hugh, Earl of Chester,
suffered on one or all of these occasions, for Camden says, “though
he made diligent inquiry he could not discover the least footsteps”
of it. The original cathedral was founded by St. Deiniol in the sixth
century, and beneath it is buried the great Welsh prince Owen Gwynedd,
hero of many battles, who fought here on the heights above the straits
a fight so desperate that “the Menai could not ebb on account of the
torrent of blood which flowed into it.” Before we go on to Carnarvon we
must cross those straits, for the sake of the bridge, and of the view,
and of Beaumaris.
It was in the year 1826 that the mail-coach, swaying under its burden
of excited officials, rolled slowly for the first time over the Menai
Bridge. It was a brave scene. Telford, in his modest way, had pleaded
against a formal procession, but he could not check personal enthusiasm
nor prevent the mustering of that long, long line of carriages and
horsemen and thousands on foot, which followed the Royal London and
Holyhead Mail, amid the fluttering of flags and the firing of guns, and
the roaring of a gale. Nor yet could he control the shouts that rose
above the wind when he himself passed by in an inconspicuous carriage.
As soon as we reach the sacred shore of Mona, the last home of
the Druids, we turn sharply to the right; unless, indeed, we
have a mind to pursue the Holyhead road for a couple of miles,
for the pleasure of telling our friends that we have seen
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerchwryndrobwllantysiliogogogoch. I once
heard a rumour that this place was to be connected by rail with
Pontrhydfendigaedmynachlogfawr, but as the scheme may come to nothing
perhaps it would be wiser not to mention it.
From the shore road to Beaumaris we see the whole grand panorama of
the Gwynedd mountains, height beyond height and range beyond range,
from the pale distant peak of Snowdon to the dark shadows of steep
Penmaenmawr. It is a scene that has a quality of strangeness in it.
One looks at it from the outside, as it were; for Anglesey, which once
was green with the sacred groves of the Druids, is now, as it was
in the days of Giraldus Cambrensis, “an arid and stony land, rough
and unpleasant in its appearance.” One feels, on this flat shore,
worlds away from that beautiful country beyond the strait. On a day
of sunshine and cloud, when the mountains are glowing with every
imaginable colour and seem every moment to be changing their shapes
under the moving shadows, it is worth driving many a mile to sit on the
beach of Beaumaris.
Behind us, close at hand, is Beaumaris Castle; opposite to us, across
the water, is “Aber of the white shells,” where Llewelyn the Great held
his Court, and where his English wife died; and a little further along
the Anglesey shore to our left is Llanfaes, where he buried her “with
dire lamentation and no little honour,” and built over her grave a
monastery that was altogether destroyed by Henry IV. Poor Joan’s coffin
must have been through many changes before the sad day when it occurred
to some thrifty farmer that the queer old stone trough would do finely
for his cattle to drink out of. It was fortunately discovered early in
the last century, and another watering-trough having been found for the
cows, it was placed in safety in the garden at Baron Hill.
Beaumaris Castle does not make so brave a show as most of Edward’s
fortresses; but its ten low towers and its double line of defence were
no doubt formidable enough before their thick drapery of ivy gave them
so soft an air. The rusty iron rings that hang on the outer wall give
one of those little touches of the commonplace that bring the past so
near. Edward I. cut a canal and filled the moat of Beaumaris Castle
from the sea, and so the ships that brought supplies to the garrison
were moored and unladed at the very walls.
The shores of the Menai have seen a vast amount of fighting of a very
desperate kind, from the days when the Druids stood at bay here to
the time when Edward I. bridged the strait with boats and was badly
beaten by the last Llewelyn. And as we re-cross the bridge and look
down at the ancient little church of Llandysilio so far below us, we
may remember another scene--peaceful in itself but not unconnected
with bloodshed--when on a hill near here, Archbishop Baldwin and that
delightful chronicler Giraldus induced many persons, by persuasive
discourses, to “take the cross.”
[Illustration: THE MENAI BRIDGE, FROM ANGLESEY.]
[Illustration: CARNARVON CASTLE.]
From the other side of the Menai, on the Carnarvon road, the view is,
of course, comparatively tame; but we have only eight miles to travel
before reaching Carnarvon, and on a level road they are soon disposed
of.
It is difficult to realise at the first moment that the well-preserved,
clean walls upon which one comes so suddenly in the middle of Carnarvon
were raised by Edward I.; though that king himself stands above the
gateway, with his hand on the sword that worked so hard. This is the
greatest of his castles; he chose it for the birthplace of his son, and
chose it too, apparently, to be the monument and symbol of himself.
Nothing could be a more fitting emblem of the unyielding strength of
the king who built castles in Wales almost as profusely as other men
build them in Spain. On this, the town side of it, one is more struck
with its strength than with its beauty. To see it at its best one must
cross the bridge, and from the other side of the river-mouth look at
the huge bulk of it; the long line of the curtain-wall reflected
in the water; the great octagonal towers, with their clusters of
slender turrets; the unutterable repellent air of it. There are no
windows in these cold walls; no ivy or very little, to soften their
austerity. Even from this side, though the water and the shipping
give it picturesque surroundings, I think Carnarvon Castle is not
beautiful so much as impressive. When Queen Eleanor entered it through
the gate still called the Queen’s she did not see it as it stands
now, for it was finished by her son, who was born in the castle soon
after her arrival. A little room in the Eagle Tower is shown as his
birthplace; but those who have read the local records declare it to be
proved beyond doubt that the tower was without a roof till the baby in
question, Edward II., put a roof on it himself.
It is surprisingly well preserved. This, no doubt, is partly because
it has never been overcome by any more destructive agent than the
starvation of its garrison. Glyndwr besieged it on its landward side,
and his French allies attacked it from the sea; but they made little
impression upon it, and finally, since time was precious, they thought
it wiser to employ their engines elsewhere more profitably, though
the garrison within numbered only twenty-eight men, in sore want of
provisions.
Between Carnarvon and the Pass of Llanberis lie ten miles of undulating
country. But the mountains are towering before us like an impassable
wall, growing ever higher and more formidable as we pass Llyn Padarn
and Llanberis town, whence the mountain-railway starts for the summit
of Snowdon. No doubt the northern shores of Llyn Padarn and of Llyn
Peris, which lies beyond it, were once beautiful; but they are now
merely a mass of unsightly débris, mountains of broken slate, terrace
above terrace of melancholy grey. The southern shore of Llyn Peris,
however, at the very foot of the Pass, has kept its own wild beauty,
and on a craggy little hill that rises at the lower end “there is yet
a pece of a toure,” as Leland says. A very notable piece of a tower
it is too; for Dolbadarn was the very centre and heart and ultimate
citadel of Welsh freedom from the earliest days. Here Llewelyn, the
third and last, kept his brother a prisoner for twenty-three years,
and here Owen Glyndwr hid himself whenever it suited him to elude the
English, who invariably lost their way among these mountains. It was
here, too, that Owen hid his chief enemy, Lord Grey of Ruthin, who had
embroiled him with the King of England and caused all the trouble. But
this little square grey “pece of a toure” is far older, they say, than
Owen or Llewelyn. It is supposed to have been built by Maelgwyn, the
same prince who built that first castle at Deganwy which was rebuilt
by Robert of Rhuddlan and King John at such large cost to themselves.
Maelgwyn, King of Gwynedd in the sixth century, is one of the forceful
characters who stand out here and there conspicuously in the rather
bewildering host of Cymric princes; a personable man, according to
all accounts, and one of great courage and success in battle, yet not
without leanings towards the monastic life. He actually became a monk
for a time; but no one can have been greatly surprised when he tired
of the constraint and took to soldiering again. On the whole I fear
he was a truculent creature, for Taliesin, “chief of the bards of the
West,” proclaimed, with the ambiguity common to prophets, that--
“A most strange creature should come from the sea-marsh of Rhianedd
As a punishment of iniquity on Maelgwn Gywnedd,
His hair, his teeth, and his eyes being as gold.”
And Maelgwyn died of the yellow plague.
[Illustration: DOLBADARN CASTLE.]
[Illustration: SNOWDON, FROM CAPEL CURIG.]
It is only a little way beyond this point that the actual Pass of
Llanberis begins to rise, cleaving its straight course between the
mountains to the very foot of Snowdon--“to the Welsh always the hill
of hills,” as Borrow says. The highest peak, Y Wyddfa, is not visible
from the Pass, but one sharp-edged shoulder in certain lights seems
to be within a stone’s-throw of the road. This is the steepest of the
three passes near Snowdon, and the one whose name is best known to the
world in general. As for beauty--the most beautiful of the three is the
one on whose royal blues and imperial purples one’s eyes are actually
feasting at the moment. But I would say this: to understand even the
elements of the beauty of these hills it is imperative to travel _up_
each of the three passes, for as one climbs up into the heart of the
mountains the effect is in every case more beautiful than on the
downward journey. On a continuous tour this is of course impossible;
and that is one reason why the best way of seeing Snowdonia is to
stay for a few days at a centre, such as Bettws, or Capel Curig, or
Pen-y-Gwryd.
At one or other of the two latter places it will probably be necessary
to spend a night after this run from Bettws to Bangor and Carnarvon.
Capel Curig has the finer view, and a hotel that has overlooked Llyn
Mymbyr and faced the peaks of Snowdon for many a year. I do not know if
it is the same that Sir Walter Scott stayed in and Lockhart described
as “a pretty little inn in a most picturesque situation certainly, and
as to the matter of toasted cheese, quite exquisite”; but it is without
doubt the same that seemed to George Borrow “a very magnificent
edifice.” He dined here, he tells us, “in a grand saloon amidst a great
deal of fashionable company,” who “surveyed him with looks of the most
supercilious disdain.” I strongly suspect that both the fashion and the
disdain existed only in a sensitive imagination.
Pen-y-Gwryd is exactly at the junction of the Pass of Llanberis with
Nant Gwynant, the valley down which our future course lies; and here
too there is a comfortable inn, with memories of Charles Kingsley and
the author of “Tom Brown’s Schooldays.” From this point we can start
off in the morning without retracing a step.
As one glides down the perfect gradient of this entrancing valley of
the Glaslyn, with the very blue waters of Llyn Gwynant glittering below
and the sides of Snowdon rising precipitously from the shore on the
right, and on the left the wild green slopes climbing up and up from
the roadside to the sky, one comes after all to a decision as to the
comparative beauty of these passes. Nant Gwynant is the best. The hill
is three miles and a half long, and in some places just steep enough
to force us to slacken speed and so make the most of our surroundings;
then a few miles of undulating road lead past Llyn Dinas and, still by
the side of the stony Glaslyn, into the village of Bedd Gelert, which
has won fame on false grounds as the burial-place of Llewelyn’s hound.
The rough, pathetic tomb, that stands in a meadow and is reached by a
path made by the feet of thousands of pilgrims, has a most plausible
appearance; but it was, I believe, raised by the forethought of a
hotel-keeper--a man who apparently knew his world. No bones of a
faithful dog lie here; but if we may not weep over the dust of Gelert
we may at all events mourn the loss of a beautiful, but dead, legend.
We drive through the village and enter, almost at once, the Pass of
Aberglaslyn. The steep part of the road is quite short; but this
strange cleft in the rock, this narrow ravine that holds only the river
and the road between its cliffs, forms an imposing southern gate to the
Snowdon mountains. We pass out of it almost suddenly into the wide,
level meadowland of the Traeth Mawr--and may the gorse be in its full
glory at the time!
This plain that we are swinging across so happily, this plain of
green and gold, was a barren marsh, useless to man or beast, till
it was reclaimed in the early part of last century by a certain Mr.
Maddox, who gave his name to the two towns that own their existence
to him--Portmadoc and Tremadoc. At Tremadoc lived Percy and Harriet
Shelley for a little time, while they were still happy. The poet, with
characteristic enthusiasm, was fascinated by the great draining-scheme;
and in his leisure moments grounded poor Harriet in Latin.
It is here or at Portmadoc that we turn to the right, if we are minded,
to explore the little-known peninsula of Lleyn. For some mysterious
reason the greater part of this promontory is seldom visited, though it
is not by any means without attractions. It cannot, of course, compare
in any respect with the dramatic grandeur of the Snowdon country;
there are large tracts that might even be called uninteresting; but
from the southern uplands the panorama of the mountains of Gwynedd is
really magnificent, and on the northern coast the fine outline of Yr
Eifl--ridiculously corrupted into the Rivals--rises very grandly from
the sea. And when the gorse is in blossom the whole country is veined
with gold, for here they make their hedges of gorse, and the air is
heavy with its poignant sweetness.
As for the roads, they are mostly good. The roads from Pwllheli to
Nevin, to Yr Eifl and Clynnogfawr, and to Aberdaron are all excellent;
so also is the one that connects Nevin with Aberdaron; but the “Saints’
Road to Bardsey” from Nevin to Llanaellraiarn should be avoided, since
the saints, apparently, employed indifferent engineers.
To reach Pwllheli from Portmadoc we must past through Criccieth, one
of the most popular places on this coast, and one that must have been
really beautiful before its popularity spoilt it. It has a nice hotel,
and is, in any case, a far more attractive stopping-place than the
ambitious Pwllheli. The castle, not without dignity, stands aloof upon
its abrupt round promontory, facing the rows of modern lodging-house as
though they were some new kind of enemy drawn up against it. For that
Edwardian gateway has faced many enemies, and the castle still more. Of
its original founding I believe nothing is certainly known, but it is
older than its gateway, for Llewelyn the Great chose it for the prison
of his unruly son, Gryffydd, of whom it was said that “peace was not
to be looked for in his neighbourhood.” But, indeed, in those times a
strong prison seems to have been the only way of securing peace in any
one’s neighbourhood.
Much the most picturesque person who has ever been connected with
Criccieth was Sir Howel y Fwyall, or _of the Axe_. So doughty were
his deeds at Poictiers that the Black Prince not only did him honour
in the usual ways, with money and knighthood, but gave orders that
the pole-axe with which he had done so valiantly should be set up in
this castle of Criccieth--of which Howel was Constable--and should be
served with a mess of meat daily. Eight yeoman were entrusted with this
service, and after the ceremony the meat was given to the poor. The
custom was kept up till the reign of Elizabeth.
The name of Pwllheli is well known, if ill-pronounced, in the world of
tourists. It aspires to be a fashionable watering-place, and one feels
that success may possibly crown its endeavours, when one considers the
natural disadvantages of Rhyl and Borth and many another prosperous
spot.
A few years ago we should have been obliged, having once passed
Criccieth, to spend the night at Pwllheli; but now we shall do well if
we rather choose Nevin for our stopping-place. A nice new hotel has
been built there--a hotel with no foolish pretensions, but evidently
with every intention of gradually becoming a thoroughly comfortable
abiding-place for golfers who like quietness. The little town lies
close under the shelter of the hills, and between it and the sea is
the flat land of the Morfa Nevin, where Edward I. gathered all the
chivalry of England and many a foreign noble to celebrate his conquest
of Wales in a great tournament.
Nevin is threatened with the railway, which, if it actually approaches
the place, will certainly spoil it; but it will be long, I imagine,
before any intrusion of that kind disturbs the peace or injures the
beauty of little Aberdaron. It is an elect spot, this End of the World
in Wales; more remote, less visited than St. David’s, and infinitely
less famous; yet once trodden, like St. David’s, by the weary feet of
countless pilgrims. For just beyond that low headland on our right is
sacred Bardsey, the Island of the Saints, where lies the dust of twenty
thousand holy men. St. Mary’s Abbey, of which some fragments still are
left, was founded in such early days that Dubritius, who crowned King
Arthur and then resigned the See of Caerleon to St. David, came to end
his day in this remote monastery; and so holy was the soil at last
that every monk in Wales crossed this dangerous channel to kneel upon
it. It was here, from these wide, white sands of Aberdaron, that they
embarked, half trembling, half inspired--white-robed Cistercians and
sombre Benedictines--and here, in this little church between the hills
and the sea, that they spent the night on their knees before braving
dangers that were not by any means imaginary. The building has been
re-roofed and much restored, but these are the very walls within which
the pilgrims prayed, the very walls that once gave sanctuary to any
man, innocent or guilty, who sought their shelter. The blind wall on
the north bears witness to the early British origin of the church.
And we must not forget, as we stand thinking of the pilgrim monks on
the shore, that this sheltered, isolated corner, hidden closely by the
hills on the one side and protected by the long headlands on the other,
was once visited by secular history. Into this bay sailed Hotspur’s
father, the base Northumberland, from France, and from Harlech came
Owen Glyndwr and Edmund Mortimer; and here in the house of the lord
of Aberdaron they swore to be thenceforward “bound by the bond of a
true league and true friendship and sure and good union,” and to act
in all ways as became “good true and faithful friends to good true and
faithful friends.”