It shadow'd o'er thy silent height, Nor hath it fled! the awful spell As when on that wild rock it fell Where Merddin Emrys lay! From this point there is some steep zigzag climbing along Clawdd-Coch. Then we pass over the fearful-looking ridge of Bwlch-y-Maen and see, at last, hanging above us in the mist, the cairn of stones and the frail huts which crown the last summit. OCTOBER. October's gold is dim-the forests rot, The weary rain falls ceaseless-while the day DAVID GRAY, In the Shadows. XXXVIII.-AUTUMN ON THE WELSH HILLS (CONTINUED). Moston, October 2. IT is now quite thirty years since, with a good deal of youthful rashness, and discarding all guides and paths, I climbed straight out of the middle of the Pass of Llanberis and up the precipitous crags to the top of Crib-y-Ddysgyl; from which I saw, for the first time, the neighbouring peak of Snowdon. It was the only great mountain with which I had then made. familiar acquaintance. No doubt there is something in the predispositions of first love; but, certainly, though I have seen many great eminences since, I know of none which, if we take it in all its aspects, is finer than Snowdon. Of course it is not mere height above the sea-level which makes the grandeur of a mountain; this depends upon many things-the existence of more peaks than one, and the grouping of them; the abruptness or suddenness of outline; the contour of the hollows or cwms, and the presence or absence of water; and above all the depth and angle of the precipices, for upon these will depend, more than upon anything else, the production of the finest aerial effects. The actual summit of Snowdon is not more than some six yards in breadth, and as you climb towards it, over the narrow ridge mentioned in my last Notes, you hardly know whether the awful horn which is seen above you, curving through the mist, should be reckoned as a thing appertaining to the solid earth or to the shifting sky. As we mounted slowly up this final reach we saw the broad-shouldered athlete of our party skipping lightly down towards us like a messenger from the clouds. To him a few hundred feet or a few pounds weight more or less are nothing; and so, taking sundry bags and satchels with him, he had gone forward to rouse the surly guardian of the huts, and was now descending again to meet us. When at length we stepped on to the little plateau of the summit the rain and wind were both so fierce that we were glad to rush under cover for a few minutes; nor was the bowl of hot tea which we found waiting for us an unwelcome surprise. When we came out again, though the rain was still heavy, the air was clearer. The wind, being from the west, flung the clouds against that side of the mountain, but left the inner or eastern side comparatively free. There were no far-reaching views, such as we have sometimes seen, over half the Principality and far out to sea; we had not even that wonderful glimpse into the green bottom of Llanberis ; but there were all the grand precipices which make the peculiarity of the mountain. And what precipices they are! Down into Cwm-y-Llan, is nineteen hundred feet; while the fall into Cwm-glas Llyn is nearly sixteen hundred feet at an angle of about seventy degrees. Taking what is called the Capel-Curig descent we turn sharply to the right, leaving the tamer Llanberis path on the left, and rattle along a break-neck track, half torrent half sliding shale, down to the shore of Glas-Llyn. Standing by this tarn, the waters of which are always singularly green, you are two thousand feet above the sea; and yet you are sunk into a deep hollow from which there rise the three great shoulders or peaks of Snowdon-Criby-Ddysgyl, Crib-Goch, and Y-Wyddfa; and also the long ridge called Lliwedd. The only outlet is a narrow one, and is due east, over Llyn Llydaw and Cwm-Dyli into Nant Gwynant. At this point you first feel the full sublimity of Snowdon. Looking across the wild little tarn the eye, overpowered, slowly finds its way up the vast cliff fifteen hundred feet high, right to the summit of the mountain. I am not alone in thinking that you may wander all over Europe, and find few finer pieces of mountain grandeur than you have here. Before this great rock we lingered spell-bound, even in the pouring rain; for surely never before was the grim and solid cliff-a cliff which has its own peculiar story of death to tell -more subtly overwoven with soft and ever-changing mist. After leaving Glas-Llyn we take the high ground under Crib-Goch, and so avoid going down to the margin of Llyn Llydaw. It is a wild walk through bog and rock and stream—the stream ever swelling, for the rain continues, and all round The monstrous ledges slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, But at last we see below us the cheerless little inn at |