"Sixteen after sixty," said the old man with a sigh; "and I have
nearly lost my sight and my hearing."
"Are you poor?" said I.
"Very," said the old man.
I gave him a trifle which he accepted with thanks.
"Why is this sand called the red sand?" said I.
"I cannot tell you," said the old man, "I wish I could, for you
have been kind to me."
Bidding him farewell I passed through the northern part of the
village to the top of the hill. I walked a little way forward and
then stopped, as I had done at the bridge in the dale, and looked
to the east, over a low stone wall.
Before me lay the sea or rather the northern entrance of the Menai
Straits. To my right was mountain Lidiart projecting some way into
the sea; to my left, that is to the north, was a high hill, with a
few white houses near its base, forming a small village, which a
woman who passed by knitting told me was called Llan Peder Goch or
the Church of Red Saint Peter. Mountain Lidiart and the Northern
Hill formed the headlands of a beautiful bay into which the waters
of the Traeth dell, from which I had come, were discharged. A
sandbank, probably covered with the sea at high tide, seemed to
stretch from mountain Lidiart a considerable way towards the
northern hill.