"'At a time almost inconceivably remote, when the hills around were covered with woods, through which the elk and the bison and the wild cow strolled, when men were rare throughout the lands, and unlike in most things to the present race--at such a period--and such a period there has been--I can easily conceive that the afanc-crocodile haunted this pool, and that when the elk or bison or wild cow came to drink of its waters, the grim beast would occasionally rush forth, and seizing his bellowing victim, would return with it to the deeps before me to luxuriate at his ease upon its flesh. And at time less remote, when the crocodile was no more, and though the woods still covered the hills, and wild cattle strolled about, men were more numerous than before, and less unlike the present race, I can easily conceive this lake to have been the haunt of the afanc-beaver, that he here built cunningly his house of trees and clay, and that to this lake the native would come with his net and his spear to hunt the animal for his precious fur. Probably if the depths of that pool were searched, relics of the crocodile and the beaver might be found, along with other strange things connected with the periods in which they respectively lived. Happy were I if for a brief space I could become a Cingalese, that I might swim out far into that pool, dive down into its deepest part, and endeavour to discover any strange things which beneath its surface may lie.' Much in this guise rolled my thoughts as I lay stretched on the margin of the lake." In another place he tells a poor man that he believes in the sea-serpent, and has a story of one seen in the very neighbourhood where he meets the man. Immediately after the description of the lake there is a proof--one of many--that he was writing straight from notes. Speaking of a rivulet, he says: "It was crossed by two bridges, one immensely old and terribly delapidated, the other old enough, but in better repair--_went and drank under the oldest bridge of the two_." The book is large and strong enough to stand many such infinitesimal blemishes. Alongside of the sublime I will put what Borrow says he liked better. He is standing on a bridge over the Ceiriog, just after visiting the house of Huw Morus at Pont y Meibion: