hey are, sir;" said the man, who from his accent was
evidently an Irishman, "for they are a disgrace to their country."

I did not exactly think so. I thought that in many respects they were
fine specimens of humanity.

"Every one of those wild fellows," said I to myself, "is worth a dozen of
the poor mean-spirited book-tramper I have lately been discoursing with."

In the afternoon I again passed over into Anglesey, but this time not by
the bridge but by the ferry on the north-east of Bangor, intending to go
to Beaumaris, about two or three miles distant: an excellent road, on the
left side of which is a high bank fringed with dwarf oaks, and on the
right the Menai strait, leads to it. Beaumaris is at present a
watering-place. On one side of it, close upon the sea, stand the ruins
of an immense castle, once a Norman stronghold, but built on the site of
a palace belonging to the ancient kings of North Wales, and a favourite
residence of the celebrated Owain Gwynedd, the father of the yet more
celebrated Madoc, the original discoverer of America. I proceeded at
once to the castle, and clambering to the top of one of the turrets,
looked upon Beaumaris Bay, and the noble rocky coast of the mainland to
the south-east beyond it, the most remarkable object of which is the
gigantic Penman Mawr, which interpreted is "the great head-stone," the
termination of a range of craggy hills descending from the Snowdon
mountains.

"What a bay!" said I, "for beauty it is superior to the far-famed one of
Naples. A proper place for the keels to start from, which, unguided by
the compass, found their way over the mighty and mysterious Western
Ocean."

I repeated all the Bardic lines I could remember connected with Madoc's
expedition, and likewise many from the Madoc of Southey, not the least of
Britain's four great latter poets, decidedly her best prose writer, and
probably the purest and most noble character to which she has ever given
birth; and then, after a long, lingering look, descended from my
altitude, and returned, not by the ferry, but by the suspension bridge to
the mainland.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Robert Lleiaf--Prophetic Englyn--The Second Sight--Duncan
Campbell--Nial's Saga--Family of Nial--Gunnar--The Avenger.

"Av i dir Mon, cr dwr Menai,
Tros y traeth, ond aros trai."

"I will go to the land of Mona, notwithstanding the water of the
Menai, across the sand, without waiting for the ebb."

So