each of which issues an elegant smaller one. Two circular bastions and three portcullisses added to the defence of the entrance. Like all other edifices erected for hostile purposes, Harlech castle has experienced many tempestuous scenes; the last in which it was engaged occurred in 1647, when William Owen, with his garrison of twenty-eight men, surrendered to the Oliverian forces, after it had seen every other castle in Wales desert the royal cause. Every external circumstance induced us to continue at Harlech; the wind blew an hurricane, the rain fell in torrents, and the evening was setting in; add to this too, Barmouth lay at the distance of ten miles from us. But unfortunately no beds were to be procured in the place, and we were reduced to the alternative of braving the storm, or sleeping on the floor. Our councils are always short and decisive; we quickly resolved to disregard the weather and proceed to Barmouth. Fortifying ourselves, therefore, with a little more of the landlady's neat Coniac, we sallied forth to meet the rage of the elements. The road followed for the most part the undulations of the shore, and continually exhibited to us the awful sight of an unbounded ocean, maddened by tempest, and wrapped in foam. To the left the western limb of the mountains that stretch across Merionethshire, dropping in rocky precipices and deep hollows to the strand, formed an appropriate companion to the watery element, which, in the nervous language of scripture, "raged horribly" on the opposite quarter. Amid this impressive scenery, where all was hugeness and uproar, it was impossible not to feel the religious principle powerfully within us. Each object tended to inspire us with wonder, adoration, and humility; with a full conviction of our own insignificance, and the omnipotence and immensity of that Being, "at whose word the stormy wind ariseth, "which lifteth up the waves of the ocean;" and who, with equal ease," maketh the storm "to cease, so that the waves thereof are still." "Who weigheth the mountains in a balance, "and taketh up the sea in the hollow of "his hand." This wild and singular road continued quite to Barmouth, a town equally extraordinary in appearance, creeping up the rugged side of an abrupt mountain, which frowns over the sea at the mouth of the river Mowddach. It is a fashionable bathing-place, admirably calcu lated for a summer's excursion, the country around it being inexhaustible in wonders and beauties. Part of the town has literally its foundation on the sand, and is completely overlooked by the aërial residences of those wiser architects, who have built their houses on the rock, which lifts its rugged face to the eastward of them. The It would be ungrateful in us not to acknowledge the extreme kindness of the landlady at our present quarters, the Cors-y-Gidol arms, who though her house is inconveniently full, received us (wet, dirty, and miserable as we appeared to be) with alacrity, and afforded us every possible comfort. The waiter and chamber-maid also must not be forgotten. former has accommodated two of us with the contents of his wardrobe; and the latter furnished the rest of our party with petticoats, to supply the absence of the waiter's inexpressibles, which the disproportion in size between him and our other two friends prevented them from using. Your's, &c. R. W. |