prejudices, and difagreeable affociations of ideas, and, in spite of every effort of reason and judgment, the unpleafing fenfations of terror will fometimes affect us.

After this dreary fcene, we entered a more wide and fertile valley, called Cwm Nancoll, The Hollow of the funken Brook. From hence the guide took me, out of the ufual track, to fee a cromlech, in a farm called Gwern Einion. This cromlech is about two miles fouth of Harlech. It is at prefent made to form the corner of a wall, and is, on two fides, built up with ftones, to prevent the fheep from getting through. There are fix fupporters, three about fix feet, and the other three about four feet in height. The ftone that refts upon thefe is large, flat, and flanting.

CATARACT.

A little while before we came to this cromlech, I heard, from the fide of the hill on which we were walking, the falling of water in a wood on the opposite mountains, and apparently about half a mile from us. I could also, notwithstanding the distance, plainly perceive a filver line among the trees, formed by the rushing of water down a precipice. The guide, in answer to my questions refpecting it, faid that it was a cataract of no great height or beauty, and if it had a name he was not acquainted with it. My walk of this day had been very long and laborious, near twenty miles,

over the most stony paths that I had yet feen in the country, and I was almost fainting from want of refreshment: I was therefore under the neceffity of being fatisfied with his account. In almoft any other cafe I fhould have croffed the vale to examine it, for I am convinced, from its appearance at fo great a diftance, that it must have been a cataract of very confiderable height and beauty.

Betwixt the cromlech and the town of Harlech, I paffed another druidical circle, fomewhat smaller than the one I have before mentioned, but furrounded with a fimilar diftant circle,

As it happened to be about the ebb of the tide when we returned, the guide pointed out to me part of a long ftone-wall, which runs out into the fea from Mochras, a point of land a few miles fouth of Harlech, in a weft-fouth-weft direction for twenty miles. This is called

SARN BADRWYG,

near

The Shipwrecking Causeway. It is a very wonderful work, being throughout about twenty-four feet thick. Sarn y Buch runs from a point north-weft of Harlech, and is fuppofed to meet the end of this. The fpace betwixt thefe formed, fome centuries ago, a habitable hundred belonging to Merionethfhire, called

CANTREF GWAELOD,

The Lowland Hundred. The Welsh have yet tra ditions refpecting feveral of the towns, as Caer Gwyddno, Caer Ceneder, &c. These walls were built to keep out the fea. About the year 500, when Gwyddno Garan Hir, Gwyddno with the high Crown, was lord of this hundred, one of the men who had the care of the dams, got drunk and left open a flood-gate. The fea broke through with fuch force, as alfo to tear down part of the wall, and overflow the whole hundred, which, fince that time, has been always completely flooded. Thus is Cardigan Bay, (a principal part of which Cantref Gwaelod formerly occupied,) for many miles fo full of fhoals, as to render it extremely dangerous for a veffel of any burthen to venture, at all near the Merionethfhire coaft.

CHA P. III.

HARLECH TO BARMOUTH.

Upright Stones. Cromlechs.- Ancient Barrows, the Mode of forming, and the Utility of them.-Barmouth-Houfes fingularly fituated.-Inn.-Beach, and River.—Uncommonly beautiful Scene. -Trade of Barmouth.

THE road from Harlech to Barmouth (ten miles) is even and good; but lying over a flat and dif agreeable country, it is beyond measure dull and uninterefting. At a diftance towards the fea there are nothing but turfy bogs and falt marfhes; and, on the other fide, the mountains are low and ftony, and in every respect devoid of picturesque beauty.

In a field by the road-fide, near Llanbedir, I obferved two upright ftones ftanding near each other, the one ten, and the other about fix feet in height. These were without infcriptions, and aré what the Welth call Meini Gwyr, "the ftones of the heroes;" or the funeral monuments of cele brated warriors flain in battle.

A few hundred yards beyond the fifth mile stone, and at a little diftance on the left of the road, two cromlechs were pointed out to me. These were very near each other, and placed on barrows, or

heaps of loose stones, which are supposed to indicate that fome men of ancient note were interred beneath them. These barrows, from the circumftance of the cromlechs being erected on them, are evidently of high antiquity; but I am inclined to fuppofe, (with a very judicious traveller through this country in the year 1774,) that many of the heaps of ftones with which this country abounds, and which are ufually taken for barrows, or carnedds, as they are here called, "were originally piled together for no other reason than that the reft of the field might afford the clearer pafture. In the melancholy wafte between Pont Aberglasllŷn and Llyn y Wenwn, I obferved many modern carnedds, which had been thrown up in large piles by the induftrious inhabitants for that profitable purpofe *."-The mode of forming the ancient carnedds in this country was fomewhat fingular. When the carnedd was confidered as the honourable tomb of a warrior, every one that paffed by threw on it an additional ftone as a mark of refpect; but when this heap became difgraced by fhielding the body of the guilty, it was ftill the custom of every one that paffed to fling his ftone, but, in this cafe, it was done in token of deteftation. The original intention of heaping stones over the dead, was doubtlefs to defend the bodies from being dug up, and devoured by the wolves, with which the wild and mountainous parts of Britain

* Wyndham's Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales.

formerly