The Argosy — page 231: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

214 Among the Welsh. Snowdon closed-in the vision. On our right were the Glyders, two mountains of granite, more than three thousand feet high, rocky, barren and stern, with steep, precipitous crags that were really grand, and fitly guard the entrance to the Pass of Llanberis, the wildest, most rocky, and, if the term be not too exaggerated, most sublime pass in Wales. ‘Turning to the nght, near a solitary house, now closed for the season but generally crowded in summer with tourists on pleasure bent, we left behind us that splendid view into the valley, which made one almost feel like gazing down upon a far- off and very lovely garden-world, and commenced a descent which continued for five long uninterrupted miles. Nothing but a series of rocky, towering granite hills from beginning to end. Frequently the sides were smooth, and almost perpendicular. Here and there small cascades oozed down from the summits, to be lost before they reached the bottom. ‘The bed of the valley was strewn with immense fragments of rock that in falling must have shaken the very foundations of the pass itself. Other great boulders hung apparently by a thread and seemed on the very instant of separating. In one or two places, by the peculiar look of the stone might be traced the action of ancient glaciers, but of which all other signs have long since disappeared. The rocky hills on the left were more sloping, and fell further back from the road; and on small green patches, on ledges and narrow paths, one traced the little Welsh sheep grazing and straying. Ere many days were over, these would all be hunted down and folded by the dogs and the shepherds—many sheep and many folds. On the left, too, below the road, at intervals one came upon a small house, a tiny mountain farm, looking desolate, abandoned and. world-forgotten. Round about it were small patches of bright green grass, oases in a desert, on which a head or two of black cattle, quietly chewing the cud of reflection, probably formed the greater portion of the worldly substance of their owner. And here occasionally, with great care and industry, a small portion of ground had been enclosed, worked and tilled, until it brought forth gram to the husbandman, truly and indeed the precious fruit of the earth. And now from that stony wall uprose a huge heron, that, with slow and majestic flight, winged its upward way and was lost beyond the mountain tops. ° And then—a sudden shock. Was the valley closing in? Had one of those great boulders loosened, and were we about to end our days beneath its weight ? Or had the earth opened to swallow us up ? No, nothing of all this; but the horse had fallen, and upon examin- ation was found to have cut its knees badly. Apart from pity for the -animal and vexation at the accident, it was a predicament to be in. We were still nearly two miles from Llanberis, and the horse was so hurt that to go forward seemed difficult, to return impossible. But in this world, most difficulties have their way of escape: the irremediable seldom happens. Whether this is due to an overruling GOMIGIOOKS (E(0)