“Projecting out over the ravine,” he continues, “was a kind of looking-place, protected by a wall forming a half-circle, doubtless made by the proprietor of the domain for the use of the admirers of scenery. Cut on the top surface of the wall, which was of slate and therefore easily impressible by the knife, were several names, doubtless those of tourists who had gazed from the look-out, amongst which I observed, in remarkably bold letters, that of T*****”
Borrow would have been more correct in his surmise if he had given the credit of this little balcony built out from the road to Telford. He it was who designed that little look-down into the depths, together with a few others along this road at particularly favourable view-points, thus proving his own appreciation of scenery and the possession of that artistic sense denied engineers by architects, who, as a body, are the most intolerant, opinionated, and barbarous set of professional men in existence, ready to ruin an old building for an idea, or to destroy the artistic work of one period to replace it with modern imitations of the especial style that suits their individual opinion.
Glyndyffws (how tearful and wonderful these Welsh names!) is lovely beyond expression. Nowhere else are the mountain-ashes and the scrub-oaks more exquisite than here, where they are seen clinging tenaciously to the jagged ledges of the ravine, soaked continuously in the moisture thrown up from the tortured water below, and clothed in every twig and wizard limb with moss and lichens. This, of course, was a spot that most powerfully impressed the imaginations of old travellers. Hear one of them. He speaks of the “deep and dismal chasm through which the hoarse-sounding torrent roars over the disjointed rocks beneath, and, lashing the rocky sides that check its impetuosity, rolls its angry waters to the Dee.” But we have not done with him yet. He goes on to describe the “stupendous fissure fully two hundred feet deep, overhung by large forest trees,” and continues in that strain to a wearisome length, until, in fact, we tear ourselves away, catching as we go such disjointed phrases as “awful scene,” “maddened torrent,” “profundity of horrible bed,” and so forth. That old tourist, fortunately for himself, did not visit Snowdon, after so recklessly expending all his adjectives on the way. Had he done so, he must surely, bankrupted in phrases, have, in presence of Snowdon’s grandeur, become a literary insolvent, paying the equivalent of a farthing in the pound.