it was never written. Perhaps he found it hard to vivify or integrate
his notes. In any case there could hardly have been any backbone to the
book, and it would have been tourist's work, however good. He was not a
man who wrote about everything; the impulse was lacking and he went on
with the furious Appendix to "The Romany Rye."

In 1854 he paid a much longer visit to Wales. He took his wife and
daughter as far as Llangollen, which he used as a centre during August.
Then he had ten days walking through Corwen, Cerrig-y-Drudion, Capel
Curig, Bangor, Anglesey, Snowdon, Beth Gelert, Festiniog, and Bala. After
three weeks more at Llangollen, he had his boots soled and his umbrella
mended, bought a leather satchel with a lock and key, and put in it a
white linen shirt, a pair of worsted stockings, a razor, and a prayer
book, and with twenty pounds in his pocket and his umbrella grasped in
the middle, set out on a tour of three weeks. He travelled through the
whole length of Wales, by Llangarmon, Sycharth, Bala, Machynlleth,
Devil's Bridge, Plinlimmon, Pont Rhyd Fendigaid, Strata Florida,
Tregaron, Lampeter, Pumpsaint, Llandovery, Llangadog, Gwynfe, Gutter Fawr
(Brynamman), Swansea, Neath, Merthyr, Caerphilly, Newport, and Chepstow.
He had loved the Welsh bards and Wales from his boyhood up, and these
three months kept him occupied and happy. When at Llangollen he walked
during the day, and in the evening showed his wife and stepdaughter a
view, if he had found one. His wife reported to his mother that she had
reason to praise God for his condition.

Borrow was happy at seeing the places mentioned by the bards and the
houses where some of them were born. "Oh, the wild hills of Wales," he
exclaimed, "the land of old renown and of wonder, the land of Arthur and
Merlin!" These were the very tones of his Spanish enthusiasm nearly
twenty years ago. He travelled probably without maps, and with no