Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/39

Rh of the retiring fluid." How could it be otherwise? Had not men, digging for coal on Malldraeth Marsh, found shelly sea-beaches deep beneath the turf? Were not the peat-bogs full of tree-stumps, evidence of inundation? What did the old parson make of the Maen Mordhwyd?

West of Llanidan the character of the country changes; woods no longer border the Straits, and the undulating country falls to flat, cultivated land in the valley of the Braint. The road runs along a low ridge, sloping to the south to the Straits and to the north, beyond the little Braint, to the wide valley of the Cefni, Anglesey's most important river. Cromlechs, camps, carnedds, maenhirs—relics of the vanished races—remain as single or heaped stones, or, often as not. as mere place-names on a map; it is a fine country for archæological and antiquarian speculation. Giraldus, crossing from Carnarvon to Aber Menai, remarked that at first sight "the island of Mona is a dry and stoney land, rough and unpleasant in its appearance," but that inland it is "more fertile in corn than any other part of Wales." This, to a great extent, is true to-day. The cultivated land stretches away to Newborough, now but a typical Welsh village, but once of great importance. Rhos-vair was a British town, overlooking the impassable marshes of the Cefni; Edward I. made it the seat of justice for the island, calling it the New Borough, a set-off for the royal town of Aberffraw, with its port and palaces, away across the sands. The mansions of the rulers were here, the business of the island centred in the town; it was within reach of Carnarvon, of strategic value. Pennant, however, says that it has "greatly fallen away from its ancient splendour." We echo his lament—"the glory of Newborough has now passed away."

South and west of Newborough the Warren extends for miles, a waste of blown sand, dune after dune, the home