For a
time all my thoughts were of Spain. It was not long, however,
before I bethought me that my lot was now in a different region,
that I had done with Spain for ever, after doing for her all that
lay in the power of a lone man, who had never in this world
anything to depend upon, but God and his own slight strength. Yes,
I had done with Spain, and was now in Wales; and, after a slight
sigh, my thoughts became all intensely Welsh. I thought on the old
times when Mona was the grand seat of Druidical superstition, when
adoration was paid to Dwy Fawr, and Dwy Fach, the sole survivors of
the apocryphal Deluge; to Hu the Mighty and his plough; to Ceridwen
and her cauldron; to Andras the Horrible; to Wyn ab Nudd, Lord of
Unknown, and to Beli, Emperor of the Sun. I thought on the times
when the Beal fire blazed on this height, on the neighbouring
promontory, on the cope-stone of Eryri, and on every high hill
throughout Britain on the eve of the first of May. I thought on
the day when the bands of Suetonius crossed the Menai strait in
their broad-bottomed boats, fell upon the Druids and their
followers, who with wild looks and brandished torches lined the
shore, slew hundreds with merciless butchery upon the plains, and
pursued the remainder to the remotest fastnesses of the isle.
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