“‘We are on very high ground, sir, or it would look much higher. I question, upon the whole, whether there is a higher hill in the world. God bless Plynlimmon Mawr!’ said he, looking with reverence towards the hill. ‘I am sure I have a right to say so, for many is the good crown I have got by showing gentlefolks, like yourself, to the top of him.’ “‘You talk of Plynlimmon Mawr, or the Great Plynlimmon,’ said I; ‘where are the smaller ones?’ “‘Yonder they are,’ said the guide, pointing to two hills towards the north--‘the Middle and the Small Plynlimmon.... Those two hills we have just passed make up the five. That small hill connected with the big Plynlimmon on the right is called the Hill of the Calf, or Calf Plynlimmon, which makes the sixth summit.’ “‘Very good,’ said I, ‘and perfectly satisfactory. Now let us ascend the big Plynlimmon.’ “In about a quarter of an hour we reached the summit of the hill, where stood a large cairn, or heap of stones. I got up on the top and looked around me. “A mountainous wilderness extended on every side, a waste of russet-coloured hills, with here and there a black, craggy summit. No signs of life or cultivation were to be discovered, and the eye might search in vain for a grove, or even a single tree. The scene would have been cheerless in the extreme had not a bright sun lighted up the landscape. “‘This does not seem to be a country of much society,’ I said to my guide. “‘It is not, sir. The nearest house is the inn we came from, which is now three miles behind us. Straight before you there is not one for at least ten, and on either side it is a wilderness to a vast distance. Plynlimmon is not a sociable country, sir; nothing to be found in it, but here and there a few sheep or a shepherd.’ “‘Now,’ said I, descending from the cairn, ‘we will proceed to the sources of the rivers’ (the Severn, the Wye, and the Rheidol). The source of the Rheidol is a small, beautiful lake, about a quarter of a mile in length. It is overhung on the east and north by frightful crags, from which it is fed by a number of small rills. The water is of the deepest blue, and of very considerable depth. The banks, except to the north and east, slope gently down, and are clad with soft and beautiful moss. The river, of which it is the head, emerges at the south-eastern side, and brawls away in the shape of a considerable brook amidst moss and rushes down a wild glen to the south. If few rivers have a more wild and wondrous channel than the Rheidol, fewer still have a more beautiful and romantic source. “After kneeling down and drinking freely of the lake, I followed my guide over a hill into a valley, at the farther end of which I saw a brook streaming to the south. “‘That brook,’ said the guide, ‘is the young Severn.’