ADDENDUM.

(Too late for insertion in the proper place.)

ANNALS, &c., OF WALES.

CARNARVONSHIRE.
(SIR GAERNARFON.)

THE older name of that part of Wales now called Carnarvonshire was Arfon-over against, or near, Mon (Anglesey),—thus implying the greater antiquity and importance of the latter name. Caernarfon-the stronghold in Arfon-was situated near or on the site of the present town of Carnarvon. No evidence exists that prior to the founding of the present Carnarvon Castle a caer or fortress of any kind existed on that site; and as the Romans availed themselves of all places of strength owned by the Britons, it is highly probable that the ancient Caer-yn-Arfon stood near Llanbeblig, and was identical in position with the Roman Segontium, and with the later Welsh Caer-Seiont.

SECTION I.-PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF CARNARVONSHIRE.

This county is in form a long and irregular triangle, having its base or broader end measuring about 22 miles, lying on Denbighshire in the east, from the Great Orme's Head along the Conwy River as far as Llyn Conwy; and its narrower end tapering almost to a point in the long and rugged promontory of Lleyn to the south-west. Its longest side runs from S.W. to N.E., bounded throughout by the sea, first by Carnarvon Bay, and then by the Menai Straits, and the bay between these and the Great Orme's Head. This side is nearly 55 miles in length. The other side, through the whole length of the promontory of Lleyn, lies on the Cardigan Bay, and the remainder of it is contiguous to the co. of Merioneth. The superficies of this triangle contains 544 square miles, or 348,160 acres. Owing to the extremely mountainous character of this county its population is comparatively small, but the growth of ports, slate quarries, and watering-places, has of late years developed a steady increase. The result of the last five censuses is as follows::

—showing that the population in fifty years has nearly doubled.

The great convulsion, which gave to four-fifths of North Wales its broken, mountainous

surface, which tore the less agitated limb, now called Anglesey, away from the mainland, or at least left a hollow, which the never-resting tide at last wore into a channel, and which well-nigh exhausted its power, southwards, in the effort to raise Penllyman (corrupted. "Plinlimmon "), erected the chief monuments to its power in the Snowdonian range, the loftiest point of which-Y Wyddfa-stands at an elevation of 3,571 feet above the sea level, the highest mountain in South Britain.

This is the point from which, in imagination, we shall survey the extent and various surface, the lower mountains, the lakes and streams, the sea limits and neighbouring lands of this grand and historic old county.

The name Snow-don is a literal translation into Saxon-snaw-dun, snow mountain-of the native name, Eryri, the snowy heights. The Welsh word must be allowed to be a somewhat irregular plural from eira, or eiri, snow, but its explanation is not more satisfactory if we take the theory of others who think the name comes from eryr, an eagle; for here again it would present neither a singular nor a plural form of the word. Eiri rhi, in early Welsh-"the snowy chief or eminence"-would probably be the nearest guess at its etymology; and it is scarcely to be doubted that the Saxon name was not only meant to be a proper rendering of the original and ancient name, but was applied from a knowledge of its signification. This height is crested for a good part of the winter with snow, and is surrounded by several companion mountains, of almost equal height and equal brilliancy, belonging to the same range.

Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewelyn, a little to the left as you look down the Lake of Capel Curig, are apparently as high as your own station on the apex of Snowdon; but they are a few score feet lower; the former failing to measure more than 3,429 ft., the latter 3,471 ft. But they are of the regal race, and are privileged to wear their mantle of crystal white along with Snowdon. The Glider fawr and fechan, nearer at hand in the same

direction, a spur of the former of which rises from the lake to the right of the man watching for the trout, are of less ambitious elevation; and so is Moel Siabod, to your own right (2,872 feet). As you gaze at Carnedd Dafydd, Great Orme's Head out yonder in the sea is almost in the same line, and the intervening space is crowded with the multitude of craggy heights and misty bluffs, with their branchings on either side, like ribs proceeding from the backbone of a monster, not unaccompanied by fearful chasms and precipitous steeps, which suggest a descent into Acheron. These end in the frowning bluff of Penmaen-mawr, which seems to repeat itself with increased dimensions a little farther on in the Great Orme's Head. You see the Conwy river rising from Llyn Conwy in the south, and running due north to the sea at Conway. You see Nant y Gwryd running through the Capel Curig lake, meeting Afon Llugwy beyond Capel Curig, and the two performing in junction the leaps of the Swallow Falls on their way to the Conwy, by the paradise of Bettws y Coed, and the Vale of

Llanrwst. In a contrary direction, less than a mile from the point where the Llugwy turns to meet the Capel Curig stream, you see the rivulet of Nant Francon making its way through Llyn Ogwen, and on amid the sublime desolations which crowd the chasm between Carnedd Dafydd and the Garn and Bwlch y Cywion, till, passing the Penrhyn slate-quarries and that town of slate-quarrymen, of Palestinian name, Bethesda, it reaches the sea at Bangor. This stream traverses a region not more marvellous for its physical grandeur than for its inexhaustible wealth. Here are developed in their most perfect condition the Cambrian strata, which yield the celebrated Penrhyn slates, known and sought after all the civilized world over. The great estate of Penrhyn Castle was of respectable value before the development of the Bethesda and Penrhyn slate quarries, but now the net income drawn out of these apparently exhaustless sources counts something like £200,000 a year.

Those fine slopes of Penrhyn have been the location of a prominent family from early times (see Griffith of Penrhyn). Here and at Cochwillan, in succession, wealth, hospitality,

and power reigned for ages. On the same site where this magnificent pile now stands, it is believed, stood the ancient palace or Llys of Rhodri Molwynog, ruler of North Wales, in the eighth century. In the time of Llewelyn the Great (twelfth century) this spot was given to Jarddur ap Trahaiarn, from whom it passed, by the marriage of an heiress, to the posterity of Ednyfed Fychan, the chief counsellor of Llewelyn. One of this line, a grandson of Jarddur, Gwilym ap Gruffydd, circa 1353, temp. Henry VI., made hereditary Chamberlain of North Wales and Great Forester of Snowdon, is said to have been the builder of Penrhyn Castle, such as it was before more recent alterations. Sir William Griffith, Kt., Chamberlain of North Wales in the time of Henry VIII., was with that king at the siege of Boulogne. Pierce Griffith, Esq., of Penrhyn, was the man who, when the Spanish Armada threatened to overwhelm our shores, fitted out and manned a vessel of war of his own to supplement Elizabeth's fleet, setting sail from Beaumaris 20th April, 1588. In fourteen days he reached Plymouth, and placed himself under command of Admiral Cavendish and Sir Francis Drake, and after the defeat of the Armada accompanied the latter on his voyage of discovery as far as the Strait of Magellan.

Pierce Griffith, however, carried his patriotism in a wrong direction, and conceived too violent an antipathy for the Spaniards; for after his return, and peace was concluded, with a tinge of the sea-rover spirit, and probably with the sentiment that so fine a vessel so bravely manned ought not to be idle, he continued to attack and destroy, when opportunity offered or could be created, the merchant vessels of the Spanish nation; and by these vagaries and love of adventure brought upon himself, under James I., such a series of prosecutions in courts of law, and such fines following, that he was compelled to sell his estates of Penrhyn to pay his debts. The well-known Archbishop Williams became the purchaser (see Williams of Cochwillan).

In his palmy days, Pierce Griffith, like his predecessors at Penrhyn, and the princes and lords of Wales generally, used to maintain a sumptuous style of conviviality and hospitality. Drinking constituted a good part of the entertainment of those times. Pierce Griffith had the regular number of drinking-horns, one of which, the Corn hirlas, has come down as an heirloom to our own time. It is the horn of an ox, chased with silver, and suspended by a massive silver chain. The Lord of Penrhyn had the legal number of three gradations of drinking-horns-Corn y Brenhin, "the King's horn;" Corn Cyweithas," the social horn ;" and Corny Pencynydd, "the chief huntsman's horn." On great occasions-were they occasions of domestic rejoicing, religious solemnity, or warlike enterprise-the great horn, the prince's own horn, went round, overflowing with metheglin or strong cwrw, and each had to drain it off, and blow it in proof of honest performance. In war-time madness and courage often. rattled on arm in arm.

"Fill the horn with foaming liquor,

Fill it up, my lad, be quicker!
Hence away, despair and sorrow,

Time enough to sigh to-morrow.

Hear ye not their loud alarms?

Hark! they shout to arms! to arms!"

The old castle of Penrhyn was altered, decorated, and completed, nearly as it now stands, by the late Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn (d. 1808), a man who not only made the