The Dysynni is a land-locked river as it approaches the sea, for the Cambrian Railway crosses its estuary. There is a spectacle on one hand of what seems a lake among purple mountains, and on the other of a stream winding amid dreary flats to the breezy waters of Cardigan Bay. Towyn, which is but a small place, has a certain fame for sea-bathing, and for its association with "a holy man of Armorica, who came to Wales in the sixth century to refute the Pelagian heresy." One does not inquire too curiously into these things; but there, not far from the estuary of the Dysynni, is St. Cadfan's Church, and St. Cadfan was one who performed miracles; and in the church there is a pillar which, as some aver, is inscribed in debased Roman characters, and once marked the site of St. Cadfan's grave. * * * * * "Neither the North of England, nor Scotland, no, nor Switzerland, can exhibit anything so tranquil, romantic, snug, and beautiful as a Welsh valley." These are the words of John Wilson, the "Christopher North" of the famous "Noctes Ambrosianæ" and the "Recreations"; the "rusty, crusty Christopher" of Lord Tennyson's early satire. He was thinking of Dolgelley and all the indescribable charm of its surroundings. Wilson was a Scot who had dwelt continuously and for many years amid the English Lakes. He knew his Switzerland, too; and it must have been reluctantly, one would think, that he gave this unstinted praise to the particular valley in which North Wales seems most to unite its grander and its quieter beauties, all its wonders of mountains and wood, torrent and waterfall, snug valley and scarred and towering height. The /Mawddach/ estuary, which has the appearance of a chain of lakes, winds among the mountains as far as Penmaenpool, where there is a long, low, sinuous railway bridge of innumerable arches. Here, where the Mawddach suddenly becomes a stream, flowing through green marshes, with its course indicated by lines of deep-driven stakes, Christopher North must often have been reminded of the head of his beloved Windermere, missing only the solemn and silent majesty of the Langdale Pikes. Following the river upward through the wide, marshy plain until it again hides itself among woods and hills, one comes upon the river Wnion, which is chiefly of importance among Welsh rivers because it is famous for its trout, because it winds through Dolgelley on its way, and because, two miles further upwards, it is joined by the tumultuous thread of water which tumbles from pool to pool, over cataract after cataract, close beside the steep, mile-long piece of sylvan beauty known as the Torrent Walk. Until it receives this tributary the /Wnion/ is, except in seasons of rain, but a thin and feeble stream; but it flows through beautiful and shady woods, fretting sometimes over a rocky bed, sometimes flowing in a peaceful, sunlit calm, and now and again reflecting one of those wide-arched,