Shortly after leaving him, I turned
from the road to inspect a monticle which appeared to me to have
something of the appearance of a burial heap. It stood in a green
meadow by the river which ran down the valley on the left. Whether
it was a grave hill or a natural monticle, I will not say; but
standing in the fair meadow, the rivulet murmuring beside it, and
the old mountain looking down upon it, I thought it looked a very
meet resting-place for an old Celtic king.
Turning round the northern side of the mighty Siabod I soon reached
the village of Capel Curig, standing in a valley between two hills,
the easternmost of which is the aforesaid Moel Siabod. Having
walked now twenty miles in a broiling day I thought it high time to
take some refreshment, and inquired the way to the inn. The inn,
or rather the hotel, for it was a very magnificent edifice, stood
at the entrance of a pass leading to Snowdon, on the southern side
of the valley, in a totally different direction from the road
leading to Bangor, to which place I was bound. There I dined in a
grand saloon amidst a great deal of fashionable company, who,
probably conceiving from my heated and dusty appearance that I was
some poor fellow travelling on foot from motives of economy,
surveyed me with looks of the most supercilious disdain, which,
however, neither deprived me of my appetite nor operated
uncomfortably on my feelings.
My dinner finished, I paid my bill, and having sauntered a little
about the hotel garden, which is situated on the border of a small
lake and from which, through the vista of the pass, Snowdon may be
seen towering in majesty at the distance of about six miles, I
started for Bangor, which is fourteen miles from Capel Curig.
The road to Bangor from Capel Curig is almost due west. An hour's
walking brought me to a bleak moor, extending for a long way amidst
wild sterile hills.
The first of a chain on the left, was a huge lumpy hill with a
precipice towards the road probably three hundred feet high. When
I had come nearly parallel with the commencement of this precipice,
I saw on the left-hand side of the road two children looking over a
low wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel.
On coming up I stopped and looked at them; they were a boy and
girl; the first about twelve, the latter a year or two younger;
both wretchedly dressed and looking very sickly.
"Have you any English?" said I, addressing the boy in Welsh.
"Dim gair," said the boy; "not a word; there is no Saesneg near
here."
"What is the name of this place?"
"The name of our house is Helyg."
"And what is the name of that hill?" said I, pointing to the hill
of the precipice.
