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Anglesey.—The extreme flatness of the island perhaps
gives an increased effect to its fine rock scenery about the
Stacks, which will be respected by climbers as perhaps the
earliest school of their art in Wales. An old description of
the egg-takers here contains some interesting sentences which
are not wholly devoid of point even for climbers of the present
day. 'The gains bear no tolerable proportion to the danger
incurred. The adventurers, having furnished themselves
with every necessary implement, enter on the terrific undertaking.
Two—for this is a trade in which co-partnership
is absolutely necessary—take a station. He whose superior
agility renders it eligible prepares for the rupestrian expedition.
Dangerous employ! a slip of the foot or the
hand would in an instant be fatal to both. To a stranger
this occupation appears more dangerous than it really is.
In persons habituated to bodily difficulty the nervous
system becomes gradually braced, and the solids attain that
state of rigidity which banishes irritability, while the mind,
accustomed to danger, loses that timidity which frequently
leads to the dreaded disaster. Fact demonstrates to what
an extent difficulty and danger may be made subordinate to
art and perseverance.'
This is the voice of truth, but the solids nowadays (owing
possibly to the fluids or to the want of them) do not banish
their irritability completely.
Carnarvonshire.—Both in the quality and the quantity
of its climbs this county leaves the rest of Wales far
behind. Its superiority is even more marked than that of
Cumberland over the rest of England.
Snowdon, the Glyders, and the Carnedds would alone be
sufficient to establish this; but there are numbers of less
important elevations which would have a great reputation
in almost any other county.
The chief mountain centres are Penygwrhyd, Beddgelert,
Llanberis, and Snowdon Ranger, all four lying at the foot of
Snowdon, Benglog (Ogwen Cottage), Capel Curig, and
Ffestiniog.
The appearance of the county must be greatly changed
since Leland's time. He tells us that 'the best wood of
Caernarvonshire is by Glinne Kledder and by Glin Llughy
and by Capel Kiryk and at Llanperis. More upwarde be
Eryri Hilles, and in them ys very little corne. If there were
the Deere would destroy it.' The destruction of this wood
has greatly injured the beauty of the valleys round Snowdon,
Nant Gwynant being the only one where it remains in any
quantity.
Penmaenmawr (1,553 ft.) is far from being a difficult
mountain. The ancient Britons had a fort on the top of it,
and it was ascended 'by a person of quality in the reign of
Charles II.,' but it is scarcely a paradox to say that it was
the greatest obstacle to knowledge of Welsh mountains
during last century. The highroad from Chester crossed it,
and our ancestors used to go rolling off it down into the sea,
and did not like it. Therefore a journey to Wales was a
great and a rare feat. All the early travellers dilate upon
its terrors. In 1795 Mr. T. Hucks, B.A., gives a ludicrous
account of his ascent, which was actually made without
a guide. 'We rashly took the resolution to venture up
this stupendous mountain without a guide, and therefore
unknowingly fixed upon the most difficult part to ascend,
and consequently were continually impeded by a vast
number of unexpected obstructions. At length we surmounted
every danger and difficulty, and safely arrived at
the top.... In the midst of my melancholy cogitations I
fully expected that the genius of the mountain would have
appeared to me in some formidable shape and have reproached
me with rashly presuming to disturb the sacred
silence of his solitary reign.' Penmaenmawr was not a
frequented tourist resort in those days. The genius would
not expect much sacred silence now. The writer knows of
no continuous climb on the mountain, though he has often
had a scramble on it.
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