The Argosy — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

Among the Welsh. ZT 5 Power, to the ministering of invisible but surrounding spirits, they who have seen most of the world and followed most carefully the course of their own lives and the lives of those about them, will find it an easy matter to decide. Our escape from this present trouble lay in a cottage not ten yards ahead: the only cottage all down the pass that we had seen on the right, or that could have been of any use to us. An old woman was keeping house. She looked a hundred, and she had “no English.” But the driver, who on his part had very nearly “‘no Welsh,” quickly made her understand what was wanted, and in a few minutes hot water and a bucket and cloths were doing their best to stanch the wound and stem the deep red pool that had gathered in the road. With such help we were able presently to go on our way, if not re- joicing, at any rate in better form than not many minutes ago seemed possible. Before long we reached the famous slate quarries of Llanberis. At the foot of the mountain was a lake of some size, now fast filling in with débris from the works. High up were the quarries, gallery above gallery, a great number of men at work, looking like Lilliputians. At intervals, the report of blasting thundered out like the boom of cannon, and echoed amongst the surrounding hills. The men are paid according to their labour, and some of them earn very high wages. But, like other sources of industry, the quarries pay less than they once did, and employ a smaller number of men. It was a curious sight, even at a distance, to see these terraces of dark gray slate, rising one above another on the mountain side ; to watch the trucks running up and down, and hear the showers of broken slate rolling downwards with a noise like the swish of a hundred seas upon a pebbly shore. Soon after this we reached the hotel at Llanberis, where much sympathy was bestowed upon the driver and much care given to the horse. Here we halted for an hour and more; long enough to rest the animal, not long enough to stiffen it for the return journey. All the wildness and severity of the pass had now disappeared. It is a very lovely spot. ‘The hills surround the plain in great piles and magnificent slopes, and some are wooded and verdant, and others are stern and barren, whilst their outlines are short, peaked and diversified. The lakes of Llanberis add much to its beauty, but all this is more evident and much more striking in driving from Carnarvon than from the opposite direction. ‘Then, one grand feature after another opens out from its best point of view, and you acknowledge that the drive is one of the loveliest in Wales. | And, continuing that drive, I am not sure that the wild pass whieh follows is not also more striking and effective, for the gloom and grandeur of the rocky valley, as it may be called, stand out in yet greater contrast with the softer beauty of the vale which has gone be- fore. . COMmMICcoooks.Gc©