THE WILDEST TRACT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4491, 13 November 1922, Page 4

THE WILDEST TRACT.

(By Walter M. Galliehan, in the “Overseas Daily Mail.”)

Few of the most adventurous of tourists have discovered the delightful wilderness where I have set. UP my tent. It is a mountainous tract much larger than Dartmoor, stretching frpm the sources of the Teifi, Towy, and many minpr streams to the upper Wye.

Two stony tracks cross these uplands. one leading from Llanwrtyd Wells and civilisation to the lonely ruins of Strata Florida Abby, and the other, at an elevation of nearly 1400 feet, to Tregaron, in Cardiganshire. Sitting at the door of the tent, on the verge of a gully cut in tihe rock by an impetuous rivulet, I look upon sombre ridges stretching for league upon league. At dawn the silence is profound, but when the topmost hill is touched with pale sunlight tihe wiki creatures are astir in the air and among the heath. Soaring high: oven the valley, a buzzard startles the stpnechats with its scream, and a carrion crow replies from a pinnacle with a challenging croak.

This is one of the very few localities' where Uhse kite still breeds and the raven is fairly common. The pine marten, rarest of our British quadrupeds, with thte exception Of the almost extinct wild cat, still roams these hills. Polecats are often seen and pcca;sionally trapped or shot., and stoats .and weasels abound. Tn these highlands there are a few graziers living in old gritstone homesteads. Some of the older fblk have learned n'o English. They, tell strange tales pf Twm Shop Catti, otherwise Tom. Jones, son of Catherine, a muchfeared, but greatly admired bandit, ■whose cave is among the rocks by the Towy.