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NOTES.

NOTE 1, p. 27.

The Great Ormshead.-There are few objects more imposingly grand than the appearance of this bold projection. The great depth of sea which washes its base renders a very near approach perfectly safe in fine weather, and at the same time conveys an idea of its gigantic dimensions, so considerable a portion of which is concealed by the waters upon which it casts its mighty shadow, making their darkness blacker, and their immensity seem more profound. When the Rothsay Castle passed this spot, Mr. and Mrs. Forster were heard to observe upon the striking magnificence of the scene, under all the disadvantages of obscurity, and notwithstanding the danger which had induced them to quit the cabin. Only the day before, I had passed the Ormshead under more cheering circumstances, in the Llewellyn. Lieutenant Wright, the active commander of that fine packet, was most obligingly communicative; and, when he had fully described all that was interesting, he hove the vessel to, and directed his bugleman, at the request of some of the company, to play the air of "Auld lang syne," which was delightfully repeated by numerous echoes, caught from each other, and softened by each remove into more exquisite harmony, until the whole melted in the distance. Amongst the many anecdotes, however, told of this rock, the following is too extraordinary to be omitted even in this, as it were, passing notice. About seven or eight years since, the brig Hornby, bound from Liverpool to South America, with a cargo of dry goods, valued at upwards of £60,000, was driven from her course by a heavy gale; and, about midnight, was dashed against the rugged front of the Great Ormshead, and instantly sunk.

One of the crew happened at this terrible

moment to be out upon the bowsprit, in the act either of loosing or taking in the jib, and he was flung by the concussion upon a narrow shelf of the rock, where he lay for some time stunned and confounded; but at length, exerting that mechanical energy which providence beneficently supplies for self-preservation, even in the total absence of consciousness, and which sometimes achieves more than deliberation would dare to attempt, he succeeded in getting to the top of that frightful precipice, and crawled to a smithy at a little distance, where he was found at five o'clock in the morning by some workmen employed there, in connexion with a neighbouring copper-mine. He told his melancholy story, but was laughed at by his incredulous auditory; for he could only say that he had climbed up the horrid steep which had wrecked the vessel; how, he knew not, and the thing appeared impossible to those acquainted with the place. At day-light, however (for it was winter), portions of a wreck were discovered near the spot, and the truth of the man's story was shortly after made apparent. His name, I understand, is Thomas Williams, and he now works in the foundry of Mr. Fawcett, in Liverpool. No other individual of the Hornby's crew, or thing belonging to her, was saved.

NOTE 2, p.
29.

Puffin Island. So called by the moderns on account of the vast numbers of birds of passage of that name (the alcæ arctica of Linnæus) which make it their home from about April to August, after which period they are seen no more until the time again comes round, when they re-appear with the same mysterious suddenness as they departed, and as prodigiously numerous as ever. A telegraphic station, to which I have before referred, and an old tower, the remains of a monastic institution, are now the only buildings on the island; but that curious work, "The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales," translated from the Latin of Giraldus de Barri, by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, contains the following notice of this island, which describes it as it was six hundred and forty-two years ago, and in the true spirit of that remote age:-"There is a small island almost adjoining to Anglesea, which is inhabited by hermits, living by manual labour,

and serving God. It is remarkable, that when, by the influence of human passions, any discord arises among them, all their provisions are devoured and infested by a species of small mice with which the island abounds. * * * * This island is called in Welsh, Ynys Lenach, or Priest's Island, because many bodies of saints are deposited there, and no woman is suffered to enter it." The translator, in his "Annotations," gives a more recent account, which I am tempted by its comprehensiveness to subjoin;"Ynys Lenach, now known by the name of Priestholme Island, bore also the title of Ynys Seiriol, from a saint who resided upon it in the sixth century. It is also mentioned by Dugdale and Pennant, under the appellation of Insula Glannauch. The former has given, in his Monasticon, a recital of the grants made to this priory by Prince Llewelyn and his brother David, as well as the confirmation of them by King Edward the First, by which it appears that the abbey of Penmon, with all its appurtenances, was granted and confirmed to the prior and canons of this island, which is also said to have been the place of interment of Maelgwn Gwynedd, the founder of Penmon, Holyhead, and Bangor, and contemporary with King Arthur. The fretum, which separates the island [from Anglesea], is something more than half a mile across. The island is between half and three-quarters of a mile long, and nearly of an oval form, precipitous, with an inclination to the north; the soil is rich, with a small portion of sand intermixed; it can boast of no buildings but a ruined tower, and of no inhabitants but sheep and rabbits."

NOTE 3, p. 32.

Anglesea. The Mona of Tacitus. In figure it is an irregular triangle, indented with bays and creeks, and extending from north-west to south-east twenty miles, and about seventeen miles in breadth from north-east to south-west, calculating its length from Carnot's Point to Bangor Ferry, and its breadth from Llandwyn Abbey to Penmon Priory. Its present name originated from its conquest by Egbert, when it was called Anglesey, or the Island of the Angles. Bede calls this, and the Isle of Man, the Manavian Isles. In the "Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin,"

already quoted, the translator, speaking of Mona, or Anglesea,” says, "This island,—once the principal seat of the Druids, and the last asylum to which the distressed Britons fled for succour from the victorious Romans-the residence of the British Princes, and the strong-hold of their expiring armies,—contains many interesting monuments, of the highest antiquity, and coeval with its ancient inhabitants, the Druids."

NOTE 4, p. 32.

Penmaenmawr..-"We approached the enormous promontory, Penmaenmawr, and began to wind up its awful side. The road over this rocky mountain, which was formerly extremely rude and dangerous, has for some years been entirely altered, and divested of a considerable degree of its horror. Still, however, it cannot be travelled without shuddering. Creeping round the side of the mountain, it hangs as it were in the mid-air, with a frowning precipice above, and a steep descent immediately under it. The rocks on the right are nearly perpendicular, sometimes beetling over the road in a terrific manner; at others, retiring into deep declivities of 900 or 1,000 feet in height; from whose ragged sides project fragments of incalculable magnitude, so capriciously placed, and having such a disjointed appearance, that it is impossible for the traveller to lose the perpetual dread of being crushed to atoms under a torrent of huge stones. This danger, indeed, can never be entirely removed, as the united exertions of all the workmen in the world could never clear the face of the mountain from these innumerable masses."- Warner's Walks in Wales.

NOTE 5, p.
33.

Menai Strait.-It is conjectured, from the accounts we have of the conquest of Anglesea, both by the Romans and the English, that this channel must have been much narrower than at present; and traces which still remain of an isthmus near Porthaeth'hury, have led some geographers to imagine that the island once formed the main-land of Carnarvonshire. There is a curious historical document contained in the British Triadsiste, to that effect:

"The three original islands adjoining to Britain, were Orkney, Mon, and Wight: and afterwards the sea broke the land, so that the Mon became an island; and, in like manner, Orkney was broken," &c. There is, indeed, undoubted evidence of the encroachment of the sea upon the shore. The Lavan Sands formed a habitable hundred in the sixth century, when the sea suddenly came upon them and covered them." The following passage from Pugh's "Cambria Depicta," referring to the last mentioned fact, will be read with interest :-"Having left Puffin Island, we floated over the place where, tradition says, one Helig Voel ab Glanog, a chieftain of the sixth century, had great possessions, extending far into the bay, but which were suddenly overwhelmed by the sea. It is said that, at very low ebbs, ruined houses are yet seen, and a causeway, pointing from Puffin Island to Penmaenmawr. This causeway, indeed, is easily visible; the boatman placing me right over it, and keeping the boat's head to the tide, enabled me to examine it well: but, though so clearly seen as to appear near to the surface, the man assured me that it could not be less than two or three fathoms below it. It seemed to be about nine feet wide, well built, with large massy stones, cut into forms of a light warm grey colour, in all respects like those on the sides of the adjacent isle. From the certainty of the existence of this causeway, we may venture to give credit to the existence of the remains of Helig's houses." This extract, as I have said, will be read with interest, for it goes far to establish a singular coincidence, having peculiar reference to the subject of these sheets. The sands which now occupy the site of "Helig's Houses "" were formerly called Traeth Telafan, and Wylofaen, or Place of Weeping, from the shrieking and lamentation consequent upon so terrible a visitation; and, on a line with the causeway above alluded to, "pointing from Puffin Island to Penmaenmawr," the Rothsay Castle (as Mr. Scoresby emphatically observes) "poured out her hecatomb of human victims to the monarch of the grave." Might it not, then, with melancholy propriety, be again denominated the "Place of Weeping," of "shrieks," and of "lamentation?"

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