The pass of Nant Peris is entered by a gap called Bwlch y Gwyddol; {58a} tremendous rocks impend on either side in masses of gray crag, the long shattered ridge of Snowdon on the one hand, and the broken forms of Glydyr fawr on the other. These rocks are overlooked again by still more awful mountains, that fall in abrupt lines and close up the vista, except where they are commanded by some peak of Snowdon or its opposing rival. Images of desolation and of stupendous greatness compose the scene. A solitary cottage disturbs the retirement; and sometimes the shepherd’s shrill call, in “the office of his mountain watch,” is heard repeated among the rocks of the “Blue Vale.” {58b} Some distance up the pass a huge stone, which does not appear to have been an appendage of the mountain, but rather an independent erection, lies across the centre of the defile. A hollow beneath it was once converted by a poor woman into a summer habitation, for the convenience of tending her little flock. It exceeds the dimensions of the Boother stone {59} in Westmoreland; and the spot on which it rests is called, from the story of the poor herdswoman, “Ynys Hettys,” or Betty’s Island. The scenery decreases in magnificence as the highest point or resting-place (Gorphwysffa) is attained, where new and different beauties burst upon the sight, in the view down the Bwlch Eisteddffau into the enchanting vale of Gwynant. Accomplishing the passage of the “Blue Vale” was amongst the great boasts of Cambrian tourists: if the reward was great, so were the difficulties of the task. “If the path be dangerous known, The danger’s self is lure alone,” might then have been the adopted motto of the inquisitive tourist, but now the wheels of a stage-coach, in mimickry of the revolutions of time and of events, roll rapidly over the Gorphwysffa itself, that spot where the way-worn traveller paused to take a congratulating retrospect of the difficulties he had passed. DENBIGHSHIRE.