_June 28th._--We walked to the Menai Bridge, where we got into a car and drove to Penrhyn Castle, a vast pile of building, and certainly very grand, but altogether, though there are fine things and some good rooms in the house, the most gloomy place I ever saw, and I would not live there if they would make me a present of the Castle. It is built of a sort of grey stone polishable into a kind of black marble, of which there are several specimens within. It is blocked up with trees, and pitch dark, so that it never can be otherwise than gloomy. We then went to the ferry, and got a boat in which we sailed over to Beaumaris, and went up to Baron's Hill (Sir Richard Bulkeley's), with which I was delighted. The house is unfinished and ugly, but the situation and prospect over the bay of Beaumaris are quite admirable. Nothing can be more cheerful, and the whole scene around, sea, coast and mountains, indescribably beautiful. They compare this bay to that of Naples, and I do not know that there is any presumption in the comparison. Just below the house is the old Castle of Beaumaris, a very remarkable ruin, in great preservation, both the Castle and the surrounding wall. Drove home in another car; these cars are most convenient conveyances and in general use in these parts. _June 29th._--This morning at eight o'clock went with Lord Anglesey in the 'Pearl' to Carnarvon, where he was, as Constable of the Castle, to receive an address. All the town assembled to receive him, and he was vociferously cheered and saluted with music, firing of guns, procession of societies, and all the honours the Carnarvonites could show him. After the ceremony we went to see the Castle, which is much finer and larger, as well as in better preservation, than Conway, but not in so grand a situation. Both Conway and Carnarvon were tenable, if not habitable, till after the Civil Wars, and I do not know why they were suffered to decay any more than Warwick, which has survived the general wreck. Carnarvon must have been much more magnificent than Warwick, but it has no surrounding domain, and is actually in the town. We then sailed about in the cutter, and saw Snowdon and the other Snowdonian mountains very advantageously. [Sidenote: THE WELSH PEOPLE.]