In making the Tour of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the _Admirer_ of
_picturesque beauty_ dwells with peculiar pleasure on a tract of country
comprising the greater part of Monmouthshire, and bordering the Severn
and Bristol channel, to the western limits of Pembrokeshire. In this
enchanting district, a succession of bold hills, clothed with wild
forests, or ornamental plantations and delightful valleys, present
themselves in constant variety: many fine estuaries and rivers,
picturesque towns, and princely ruins, also adorn the scene, whose charms
are inconceivably heightened by the contiguity of the Bristol channel,
which washes the coast; in some places receding into capacious bays; in
others, advancing into rocky promontories of the most imposing grandeur.
_The Statistical Enquirer_ finds equal subject of gratification, in the
uncommon fertility of several valleys, and the woody treasures of
numerous hills, bearing myriads of oaks, and other first-rate
timber-trees. The mineral wealth of the country, and its convenient
coast for traffic, are likewise subjects of high consideration; and,
while the statist applauds the late rapid strides of manufactures and
commerce in this district, he may discover sources hitherto latent for
their increase.
_The Historian_ cannot fail of being interested while treading on the
ground where Britons made their latest and most vigorous efforts for
independence, against successive invaders; nor _the Antiquary_, while
traversing a country replete with Monuments of the Druidical ages;
military works of the Romans, Britons, Saxons, and Normans; and the
venerable relics of numerous religious foundations.
Beyond this stripe of country, from ten to twenty miles in width, forming
the southern extremity of Wales, and an intermixture of rich scenery
(particularly in the neighbourhood of Brecon), with prevailing dreariness
on the eastern frontier, South-Wales exhibits a tedious extent of hills
without majesty, valleys overrun with peat bogs, and unprofitable moors.
Beside the superb ruins of St. David's, the course of the Tivy near
Cardigan, and the scenery about the Devil's Bridge, it has little to
entice the attention of the tourist: the towns, for the most part, are
miserably poor, and travelling accommodations very uncertain; the roads,
too, are wretched beyond any thing that a mere English traveller ever
witnessed. It is, therefore, a subject of no small gratification, that
the chief beauties of South-Wales are found in a compact route; abounding
with good towns, respectable accommodations, and very fair roads. This
part of the country may be explored in a close carriage, though the
better mode of travelling is, certainly, on horse-back. The pedestrian
may claim peculiar advantages in his way of getting on; but I do not
conceive, that a man enduring the fatigue of trudging day after day
through miry roads, can maintain an exhilaration of spirits congenial
with the beauties that surround him.