Eight miles further on is Ruthin, which is another town that clusters about the summit of a hill. The castle here, which has been restored, and is still inhabited, was in existence in the reign of Edward I., and how much earlier is not known. We are now in the richest and most fertile portion of the Vale of Clwyd, with its highest mountain not far away. To the summit of Moel Fammau, 1,845 feet above the level of the sea, is only five miles. The mountain is crowned by the ugly ruin of a tower which was erected at the jubilee of George III. Hence may be seen the valleys of the Dee and the Mersey, and, by aid of a telescope, the coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Looking down the Vale of Clwyd, the eye ranges over a landscape that is dotted about with farmhouses and herds of kine; the white, tapering tower of Bodelwyddan Church rises high above its trees, and Rhyl, Llandudno, and Great Orme's Head stand out clearly on the sea margin far away. At a greater distance, and in another direction, one may behold Snowdon and Cader Idris, with their summits buried in brooding clouds. * * * * * The river Dee rises in a country which has been immemorially associated with the Arthurian legends. Here, indeed, was the infant king committed to the care of old Timon, and here his boyhood was spent-- "In a valley green, Under the foot of Rauran mossy hore, From whence the river Dee, as silver clene, His tombling billows rolls with gentle rore." So says Spenser, using a phrase which may have been in Shakespeare's mind when he made Bottom promise to "roar you as gently as any sucking-dove." Almost beyond counting are the streams which empty themselves into Bala Lake, high up among the peaks of Merionethshire. And they scarcely run dry in the hottest summers, for, as a cynical humorist has written-- "The weather depends on the moon as a rule, And I've found that the saying is true; For at Bala it rains when the moon's at the full And it rains when the moon's at the new. "When the moon's at the quarter, then down comes the rain: At the half it's no better, I ween; When the moon's at three-quarters it's at it again, And it rains, besides, mostly between!" The Dee is said to flow through the lake without mingling its waters--a tradition that may be gently set aside. It rises on the flank of Aran Benllyn, and already receives two tributaries before it joins Bala Lake at its head. At Llanuwchllyn, near to the spot at which the three little streams become one, it has grown important enough to be crossed by a rude stone bridge of two arches. [Illustration: _Photo: Catherall & Pritchard, Eastgate Row, Chester._ DENBIGH (_p. 227_).]