The Wyddfa is about thirty feet in diameter and is surrounded on three sides by a low wall. In the middle of it is a rude cabin, in which refreshments are sold, and in which a person resides throughout the year, though there are few or no visitors to the hill’s top, except during the months of summer. Below on all sides are frightful precipices except on the side of the west. Towards the east it looks perpendicularly into the dyffrin or vale, nearly a mile below, from which to the gazer it is at all times an object of admiration, of wonder, and almost of fear. There we stood on the Wyddfa, in a cold bracing atmosphere, though the day was almost stiflingly hot in the regions from which we had ascended. There we stood enjoying a scene inexpressibly grand, comprehending a considerable part of the mainland of Wales, the whole of Anglesey, a faint glimpse of part of Cumberland; the Irish Channel, and what might be either a misty creation or the shadowy outlines of the hills of Ireland. Peaks and pinnacles and huge moels stood up here and there, about us and below us, partly in glorious light, partly in deep shade. Manifold were the objects which we saw from the brow of Snowdon, but of all the objects which we saw, those which filled us with most delight and admiration, were numerous lakes and lagoons, which, like sheets of ice or polished silver, lay reflecting the rays of the sun in the deep valleys at his feet. “Here,” said I to Henrietta, “you are on the top crag of Snowdon, which the Welsh consider, and perhaps with justice to be the most remarkable crag in the world; which is mentioned in many of their old wild romantic tales, and some of the noblest of their poems, amongst others in the ‘Day of Judgment,’ by the illustrious Goronwy Owen, where it is brought forward in the following manner: ‘Ail i’r ar ael Eryri, Cyfartal hoewal a hi.’ ‘The brow of Snowdon shall be levelled with the ground, and the eddying waters shall murmur round it.’ “You are now on the top crag of Snowdon, generally termed Y Wyddfa, {177} which means a conspicuous place or tumulus, and which is generally in winter covered with snow; about which snow there are in the Welsh language two curious englynion or stanzas consisting entirely of vowels with the exception of one consonant namely the letter R. “‘Oer yw’r Eira ar Eryri,—o’ryw Ar awyr i rewi; Oer yw’r ia ar riw ’r ri, A’r Eira oer yw ’Ryri. “‘O Ri y’Ryri yw’r oera,—o’r âr, Ar oror wir arwa; O’r awyr a yr Eira, O’i ryw i roi rew a’r ia. “‘Cold is the snow on Snowdon’s brow, It makes the air so chill; For cold, I trow, there is no snow Like that of Snowdon’s hill. “‘A hill most chill is Snowdon’s hill, And wintry is his brow; From Snowdon’s hill the breezes chill Can freeze the very snow.’”