use at Dolgelly, where he signed a treaty
with France, and where the beautiful oak carving of the roof would alone
repay a visitor for his trouble in getting there. The Dee is for the most
part wanting in striking natural features, but here and there steep rocks
enclose its foaming waters; deep banks covered with trees break the rugged
shore-line; a village, such as Llanderfel with a tumbledown bridge, lies
nestled in the valley; and coracles shoot here and there over the stream.
These primitive boats, basketwork covered with hides, or, as used now,
canvas coated with tar, are propelled by a paddle, and are much used for
netting salmon. Near Bangor the fishermen are so skilful that they
generally win in the coracle-races got up periodically by enthusiastic
revivalists of old national sports.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY.]

Llangollen Vale has a beauty of its own, the family likeness of which to
that of all valleys in the hearts of mountains makes it none the less
welcome. The picturesqueness of thatched houses and a dilapidation of
masonry which only age makes beautiful marks the difference between this
valley and the Alpine ones with their trim, clean toy houses, or the
Transatlantic ones with their square, solid, black log huts and huge
well-sweeps; otherwise the fresh greenery, the purple mountain-shadows, the
subdued sounds, no one knows whence, the sense of peace and solitude, are
akin to every other beautiful valley-scene of mingled wildness and
cultivation. A traveller can hardly help making comparisons, yet much
escapes him of the peculiar charm that hangs round every place, and is too
subtle to disclose itself to the eye of a mere passer. You must live at
least six months in one place before its true character unfolds: the broad
beauties you see at once, but it needs the microscope of habit to find out
the rarest charms. Therefore it is much easier to descant on the tangible,
striking beauty of Valle Crucis Abbey than on the aggregate loveliness of
Llangollen Vale; and perhaps it is this lack of familiarity that leads
novelists, poets and others to dwell so much more and with such detail on
buildings than on natural scenery. It may not be given them to understand
upon how much higher a plane of beauty stands a bed of ferns on a rocky
ledge, a clump of trees even on a flat meadow, and especially a tangled
forest-scene or a view of distant mountains in a sunset glow, or the
surface of water undot