CHAPTER III.

FROM TEWKESBURY TO THE SEA.

Deerhurst--Gloucester--The "Bore"--May Hill--Minsterworth--

Westbury-on-Severn--Newnham--Berkeley Castle--Lydney--Sharpness

--The Severn Tunnel--The Estuary--A Vanished River.

Below Tewkesbury several pleasant places, country-houses, parks

and quiet villages are situated on the lowland, or on the gentle

undulations which diversify the width of the valley, but few are of

special interest, except the little church of Deerhurst, standing

near the waterside, which was built, as an inscription now preserved

at Oxford has recorded, in the year 1056. The greater part of the

comparatively lofty tower, with some portions of the body of the

church, belongs to this age; but the latter to a considerable extent

has been rebuilt at various dates, and its plan altered. There was a

priory of earlier foundation, but of this nothing of interest remains.

But for some miles a great tower has been rising more and more

distinctly above the lush water-meadows, as did that of Worcester

on the higher reaches of the Severn. It is another cathedral, on a

scale yet grander than the former one, the centre of the old city of

Gloucester, which for not a few years has been rapidly increasing;

but all about the precincts and in the original streets are many

picturesque remnants of the last and preceding centuries, while its

churches surpass those of Worcester.

Gloucester, as it guards the Severn, and is one of the natural

approaches to Wales, very early became a place of mark. An important

station for the Roman troops, it was in the days of Bede a very notable

town, not only in the Mercian kingdom, but also in all Britain. At

Gloucester the first of its Christian kings founded a monastery about

eighty years after the landing of Augustine; and when the Dane began

to harry England the town had not seldom to fight and sometimes to

suffer. Saxon and the earlier Norman kings often visited it. Probably

in few cathedrals out of London--except, perhaps, Winchester--were

royal worshippers so frequent. Henry III., a boy of ten, was crowned

here, and had a particular affection for the town. Hither the murdered

Edward II. was brought for burial; Parliaments were held in the city;

and most of the kings up to the sixteenth century paid it at least one

visit. But when the great Civil War broke out, Gloucester took the

side of the Parliament. So, presently, the Royal troops and Charles

himself appeared before its walls. For about four weeks it was closely

invested, and its defenders were in sore straits, till Essex raised the

siege. As a penalty the walls were destroyed after the Restoration.

That did no real harm; the city was quietly prosperous, till it was

quickened to a more active life by becoming a railway junction, when

the "break of gauge" provided many a subject for _Punch_.

[Illustration: THE SEVERN, FROM TEWKESBURY TO THE SEA.]

The cathedral stands well within the old city, a good quarter of a mile

from the Severn. One rose on this site before the Norman Conquest, but

that was destroyed by fire--the crypt beneath the choir being the only

relic--and another building was erected in the last dozen years of the

eleventh century. Notwithstanding great and conspicuous alterations,

the shell of this structure is comparatively intact. The nave has

undergone the least change, and is a very fine example of the earlier

work in that style. It resembles Tewkesbury in the increased height

of the piers and consequent dwarfing of the triforium, thus differing

from, and not improving on, the great Norman cathedrals of Eastern

England; the choir is also of the same age, though the older work is

often almost concealed beneath a veil of Perpendicular tracery; and

the east window, of the latter date, is the largest in England. The

roof also is a magnificent piece of vaulting. In fact, all the eastern

part, including the transept, was remodelled between the years 1337

and 1377, but the roof of the nave had been already replaced nearly a

century earlier than the former date. The latest conspicuous changes

in the cathedral were the additions of the grand Lady Chapel and of

the central tower. The former was grafted on to its little Norman

predecessor in the last forty years of the fifteenth century, and its

great Perpendicular east window still preserves the stained glass with

which it was filled on the completion of the structure. The east window

of the choir also contains the original glass, which is a yet finer

specimen of the art, and is older by nearly a hundred and fifty years.

The central tower was begun at the same time, but was not completed

till some thirty years later. It has few rivals in Britain; some

prefer that in the same position at Lincoln, others Bell Harry Tower at

Canterbury. Gloucester, at any rate, is the most ornate, even if it be

not the most beautiful.

[Illustration: _Photo: H. W. Watson, Gloucester._

GLOUCESTER.]

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

THE SEVERN BRIDGE, SHARPNESS (_p 123_).]

The old stained glass, the exquisite tracery of its windows, walls and

roof, give exceptional richness to the eastern half of the cathedral,

but in addition to this, it possesses several remarkable monuments.

The luckless Robert Courthose, eldest son of the Conqueror, who died a

prisoner at Cardiff Castle, was buried before the high altar. His tomb

and effigy, contrary to the usual custom, are of wood (Irish oak), but

whether they are contemporaneous is uncertain. The yet more luckless

Edward II. was brought from Berkeley Castle to lie under the central

arch on the north side of the choir. There his son and successor raised

a memorial, which is not surpassed by any in England. Despised in

life, this Edward was honoured in death--such is the irony of fate.

A constant stream of pilgrims flocked to his grave as to that of an

uncanonised saint, and the magnificent reconstruction of the choir was

the fruit of their offerings.

Telford spanned the Severn with an arch of stone 150 feet in diameter,

and below Gloucester the railway runs on a viaduct across the meadows,

Alney Island, and the river. The valley now is becoming very wide, and

seems to hint that before long the Severn will broaden into an estuary.

The river begins to swing in huge curves through the level meadows.

The tidal wave, called "the bore," sometimes attains a considerable

height, and is one of its "wonders." The Malvern Hills have receded

into the background, and their place is taken by May Hill, famous among

geologists; on the opposite side the scarp of the Cotswolds continues,

though with a rather more broken outline; but outlying hills come

nearer to the city.

The Severn ebbs and flows by Minsterworth, where Gwillim is buried,

whose heraldry was beloved by country squires. The main high road,

when possible, keeps away from the stream, for the land lies low and

is liable to floods. Westbury-on-Severn is the first place of mark--a

small town with a rather large church noted for having a separate

steeple, the spire of which is of wood. The Severn here has pressed

against higher ground and has carved it into a low cliff, which affords

sections well known to every geologist; and in the neighbourhood iron

ore is worked, as it has been for many a century. Newnham comes next,

a market-town, and an outlet for the important mining district of the

Forest of Dean, which lies a few miles away to the west. It still

preserves a sword of state given to it by King John, and there is some

old Norman work in its church.

The Severn is now changing from a river to an estuary. No places of

importance lie near the riverside, and its scenery is becoming marshy

and monotonous; but some distance away to the east is Berkeley, an

old town with an old castle, memorable for the murder of the hapless

Edward; and on the other side is Lydney, a quaint little town with a

small inland harbour, a market cross, and a fine old church. In the

adjacent park, on a kind of elevated terrace overlooking the valley,

are the remains of a group of Roman villas, from which many coins,

pieces of pottery, and other relics have been unearthed.

At Sharpness, above Lydney, a railway crosses the Severn by a long

bridge of twenty-eight arches, a magnificent work; but below it

ferryboats were the only communication from shore to shore till in 1886

the completion of the Severn Tunnel linked Bristol and the West more

closely to the eastern part of South Wales. At this point the river

is more than two and a quarter miles across; but the tunnel itself

is about double that length. This, the greatest work of its kind in

Britain, was completed by the late Sir John Hawkshaw.

The banks become yet farther apart, the water is salt, the tide ebbs

and flows, as in the sea. The estuary, indeed, continues for many a

mile, still retaining the form of a river-valley. Very probably there

was a time when a Severn flowed along a broad valley, where now the

Bristol Channel parts England from South Wales, to join another stream

which had descended over land, now sunk beneath the Irish Sea, and the

two rivers discharged their united waters into a more distant Atlantic

Ocean; but that was very long ago, so that our task is now completed.

We have followed the Severn from its source to its ending--till our

brook has become a river, and our river has become a sea.

/T. G. Bonney./

[Illustration: A BEND OF THE WYE.]

THE WYE.

"The Notorious Hill of Plinlimmon"--The Stronghold of Owen

Glendower--Llangurig--Rhayader Gwy--Llyn-Gwyn--The Elan, the Ithon,

and the Yrfon--Llandrindod--Builth--Aberedw and the Last Prince of

Wales--Hay--Clifford Castle and the Fair Rosamond--Hereford--The

Lug--"The Wonder"--Ross and John Kyrle--Goodrich Castle--Coldwell

Rocks--Symond's Yat--Monmouth--The Monnow, the Dore, and

the Honddu--Wordsworth's Great Ode--Tintern Abbey--The

Wyndcliff--Chepstow--The Lower Reaches.

Like many another thing of beauty, the /Wye/ is born amidst

surroundings dreary and dismal. Plinlimmon, the monarch of the vast

waste of hills that forms the southern portion of the Cambrian system,

has three heads. But no one can point the finger of scorn at him on

that account, for great are his cares as he stands there in that region

of morass and bog, the father of five rivers. His chief head, towering

to the sky, gathers from the heavy clouds as they drift across the land

the raindrops and the mist, and these, trickling down his shoulders,

are gathered into five different courses, and, hurrying on their way,

form the five rivers--the Severn, the Wye, the Rheidol, which flows

to Aberystwyth, and the Dulas and the Llyffnant, which by different

courses flow to the Dovey. Moreover, the rugged, austere mountain has

long been spoken lightly of; for a shepherd--it would never do to call

him an humble shepherd--who, in the early part of the present century,

had the right to sell ale and small beer in his cottage up amongst the

mountain-tops, had a board hung out with this modest sentence, which,

to be sure, soon became classic, painted upon it: "The notorious hill

of Plinlimmon is on these premises, and it will be shown with pleasure

to any gentleman travellers who wishes to see it." So, what with the

clouds and mists resting upon his head, the large family of rivers he

has to feed, and the slighting language that is held towards him, the

"notorious hill of Plinlimmon" is bald and sad and sodden. Unless,

therefore, the traveller is fond of dreariness and dankness, he will

scarcely find this a profitable journey to make--this climb to the very

source of the Wye.

[Illustration: _Photos: Hudson._

VIEWS IN THE LOWER ELAN VALLEY (_p. 128_).]

Legend, however, weaves a charm over many an else dreary waste, and

up amongst the scramble of hills of which Plinlimmon is monarch,

legend and history unapocryphal combine to fill the home of mists with

interest for all who love a stirring tale. Here, at the very source of

the Wye, Owain Glyndwr--the Owen Glendower of Shakespeare's _King Henry

IV._--who could call spirits from the vasty deep, had his stronghold,

and gathered around him his vicious little band of followers:--

"Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head

Against my power: thrice from the banks of Wye

And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him

Bootless home, and weather-beaten back."

This he truthfully told his fellow-conspirators. Plinlimmon and the

surrounding country is rich in records and legends concerning this

turbulent prince, whose very birth, on May 28th, 1354, is said to have

been attended by remarkable premonitions of coming trouble, for it is

told that on that eventful night his father's horses were found in

their stalls standing in a bath of blood that reached to their bellies.

This is the popular account, but Shakespeare's imagination created

other and farther-reaching warnings to the world concerning the fiery

spirit that had been ushered upon the scene:--

"At my nativity

The front of Heaven was full of fiery shapes,

Of burning cressets; and at my birth

The frame and huge foundation of the earth

Shak'd like a coward."

From this lofty region, half earth and half sky--for the Wye can lay

claim to trace its source to the very clouds that hang thick upon

Plinlimmon's head--the tiny rivulet bounds down the mountain-side, and

the Fates, catching at a myriad of still smaller rills, braid them

into the main stream, as the tresses of a maiden's hair are woven

together, till united they form a brook. For a number of miles the

land through which the Wye's course is laid continues to be melancholy

in the extreme, and the torrent, like all urchins brought up amidst

harsh, inclement surroundings, goes on its way brawling and turbulent,

playing leapfrog with rocks, flinging itself over precipices, swirling

in little maelstroms, and almost getting blown away in spray; and

it is not until the pretty village of Llangurig is reached that it

comes in part to its senses, and, although still boisterous, shows

itself amenable to the influence of civilisation. Not only does the

Wye here meet for the first time with civilisation, but here, too, it

becomes acquainted with that which later on in its life is one of its

glories, almost its crowning glory--trees. The head and shoulders of

mighty Plinlimmon afford no gracious foothold for these children of

fat lands and lusty air, scarcely a bush raising its branches in the

bog and marsh of the mountain. But up to Llangurig a few of them have

straggled, to break the monotony of the mountainous region. Here, too,

a bridge--one of the few works of man that sometimes add to rather than

detract from the effect of river-scenery, always provided that it is

not a modern railway bridge of iron--crosses the young stream; and a

church, the first of many on the banks of the Wye, stands near by. A

short distance below this village the stream spreads out in its valley,

and flows more gently amongst huge boulders that have been hurled down

from the sides of the mountains.

Between Llangurig and the next village of any importance, Rhayader Gwy,

to give it its full name, although most people are content to call

it by its "Christian" name only, leaving the "Gwy" to take care of

itself--between these two villages the Wye enters Radnorshire; and now

the scenery, although still wildly mountainous, is of a more subdued

description, trees becoming more plentiful, and the rocks, occasionally

shaking their heads free from the thick covering of spongy morass,

beginning to stand out bold and picturesque, and to take their proper

place in the composition of mountain-scenery. A short distance above

Rhayader Gwy the river Marteg pours its tiny volume into the Wye, and

here is one of the choicest bits of scenery in all the upper reaches of

our stream. Nannerth Rocks, lofty crags, confront the river, and narrow

the bed so that the combined waters can only squeeze through at the

expense of a mighty uproar and much plunging and dashing and flinging

of spray and foam, the brawl of the forced passage being audible for a

great distance. After its straitened course between these rocks, the

river enters an easier bed and flows sulkily down to Rhayader Gwy.

This village has a situation as wonderful as any in all the kingdom. On

every side tower the great hills, not harsh and gloomy now, but clothed

with oak forest thick and deep. Not so many years ago there were, as

the name of the village bears record, falls at Rhayader Gwy; but in

building the bridge that spans the stream the good people, little

caring for the picturesqueness of the place, removed the stones and

widened the channel, and so reduced the falls to rapids.

Although the place is of little note now, being only a lovely village,

once upon a time it was of considerable importance in the country, and

saw stirring times. Among other things, it had a strong fortress of

its own, erected by Rhys ap Gruffydd, the Prince of South Wales; but

this was so thoroughly rased to the ground by Llewelyn, in 1231, that

not a vestige remains. At a later day a successor to this stronghold

was built, but it, too, fell, in the stormy days of the Parliamentary

War, and only a mound marks the spot where it stood. Near to Rhayader

Gwy the Wye, like a mountain chief exacting tribute from his weaker

neighbours, secures the overflow from a quaint lake, said to be the

only beautiful lake in Radnorshire--the Llyn-Gwyn. In olden days many

a pilgrim, full of faith in the miraculous powers of this little lake,

made his way through the rugged district to bathe in its waters; and

there can be little wonder at the hope inspired in their breasts by the

sight of Llyn-Gwyn, for it is such a lake as is rarely found, dainty,

clear, cool, its high wooded banks rising nearly perpendicularly--a

veritable fairies' ocean. With the overflow from this the Wye tumbles

along, soon to find tributaries of much more importance.

[Illustration: THE WYE AND THE USK.]

The first of these is the Elan. This river receives the Claerwen; and

near to the juncture of the two streams is Nantgwillt, a house which,

in the momentous year 1812, was occupied by the poet Shelley, while at

Cwm Elan lived Harriet Grove. The journey from Rhayader to Cwm Elan,

a distance of five miles up the valley of the little river, is very

beautiful. Mountains rise on every side, as though guarding the privacy

of the delicious glen; inspiring sights are to be seen at every turn,

dainty views of the Wye and the Elan pleasantly breaking the green of

trees and grass, and the variegated colours of rocks. Further up the

valley is the scene chosen for the illustration on this page, where

the waters of the Elan splash along over the rocks that bestrew their

course, until they come to a sombre and forbidding pool, which might

well be bottomless.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Owen, Newtown, North Wales._

PONT-HYLL-FAN, IN THE ELAN VALLEY.]

Next, the Ithon, its waters drawn from the Montgomeryshire hills, flows

into the Wye; and then, more considerable by far than any Brecknock

tributary, comes the Yrfon, whose fountain-head is some ten miles

from Llanwrtyd. Long time ago a cave near to the river-bank harboured

Rhys Gethin, an audacious freebooter, who levied contributions from

all and sundry, including his Majesty the King himself. At the Wolf's

Leap, a point on the Yrfon worthy of a visit, the river may be said

to run on edge, for the rocks close in so that the water, while some

30 feet deep, is only a few inches across. This is the place where,

if tradition is to be credited, the last Welsh wolf took matters

into his own paws, and committed suicide. The niche of land formed

by the junction of the Yrfon with the Wye is pointed to as the spot

where Llewelyn, in 1282, made his last stand against Edward I. and

his English hosts, and was there slain and buried. About an equal

distance from Rhayader and Builth, up the valley of the Ithon, is

Llandrindod, long famous for its pure air and healing wells. As long

ago as the seventeenth century, the waters of these wells were known

to have medicinal properties that made them of peculiar value to those

suffering from scrofula and kindred troubles. The water flows out of

the rock high up on a hillside, and guests at the pump-house and hotels

enjoy a magnificent panoramic view of the valleys of the Wye, Ithon,

and Yrfon. In the last century an hotel of extravagant luxury was

erected by the side of these wells, but, proving unprofitable, it soon

became a favourite resort of gamblers, and continued to be the scandal

of the country until a lady of practical piety became possessed of the

property, and, so that there should be no doubt about her ideas on the

subject of gambling, had the building torn down and utterly removed.

That happened long ago, and now other hotels have taken the place of

the one of evil repute; and Llandrindod, having railway communication

with the outside world, is prospering exceedingly. Let us add that it

has not, in its prosperity, come to feel ashamed of its Shaky Bridge--a

primitive arrangement of planks and stretched ropes, which will some

day, it is to be feared, be displaced by a more "imposing" structure.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

THE SHAKY BRIDGE, LLANDRINDOD.]

Builth, on the Wye, is a fisherman's paradise. Using the little town

as a base, he has within easy reach the waters of the Wye, the Yrfon,

the Edw, the Dihonw, and the Chweffru, all waters rich in sporting

fish; and in the seasons of the sport about as many artificial as

natural flies skim the waters, for anglers come from far and near to a

centre so celebrated. The authentic history of Builth reaches back to

Roman times; and in later days the Danes came with fire and sword, and

levelled the place with the ground. The Castle of Builth was stormed

and destroyed as often as it was rebuilt, the partisans of one chief

after another wreaking their rage upon it, and now nothing but a mound

marks the spot where once a succession of strongholds stood.

History has no more romantic tale to tell, nor one that is more

generally known, than that of the ride of the Prince of Wales,

Llewelyn, from Aberedw, where on the banks of the Wye he had a castle,

towards Builth, which refused to succour him. There is scarce an

elementary schoolboy who has not heard of the ingenious blacksmith who

hastily nailed to the hoofs of Llewelyn's horse the shoes reversed,

so that the tracks in the snow might mislead those who were in hot

pursuit; and alas! heard, too, that the blacksmith, clever as he was

at his trade, was not clever enough to keep the secret, but betrayed

his prince to the enemy, so that the last authentic Prince of Wales was

hounded to his death. It is a story destined to immortality, for it

has drifted into folklore, and, like the curiously barbarous tale of

Little Red Riding Hood, is crooned to each generation of children until

every Welsh child dreams at least once in its lifetime of the harried

prince and the foaming steed, the new-fallen snow, and the marks of the

seven-nailed shoes running, as it were, backwards. The tale has been

transplanted to many quarters of the globe, but the Wye knows that the

prince fled along its banks from the castle to the cruel, inhospitable

town. Of the castle--Llewelyn's--to be sure, almost nothing now

remains; but the village is delightfully situated, and is much resorted

to by anglers, and not by anglers only.

The next place of particular importance is Hay. From the river the

streets of this picturesque and thriving little town rise rather too

abruptly for the pleasurable convenience of vehicular traffic; but

picturesqueness and practicability seldom go hand in hand, and what Hay

streets lack in the latter is fully made up in the former virtue. To

crown them rises the ivy-clad fragments of the famous castle.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Thirlwall, Hereford._

THE WYE BRIDGE AND HEREFORD CATHEDRAL (_p. 134_).]

It is often found that the same hero ciphers through the history of

a country or district with the persistence of a damaged note in an

organ, although usually with a less irritating effect. In this quarter

of the kingdom, which was once the buffer State between England and

Wales, the name of Owen Glendower crops up continually, and at Hay

among other places. At the head of his wild men from the hills, he

came down like an avalanche upon the castle at Hay; when he retired,

the pile was a mass of ruins, and now nothing stands of the ancient

fort but a gateway--the very stones grey with age--and part of a

tower. Legend, which has a pretty fancy and nimble brain, relates

that the castle was built in one night by the celebrated Maud de Saint

Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias Moll Walbee. "She built the Castle

of Hay" (to quote Jones's "Brecknock") "in one night, the stones for

which she carried in her apron. While she was thus employed, a small

pebble, of about nine feet long and one foot thick, dropped into her

shoe. This she did not at first regard; but in a short time finding it

troublesome, she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes

churchyard, in Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains

to this day, precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial

of the historical fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and

unbelievers." Americans have long claimed for their Chicago belles the

largest feet; but from this well-substantiated fact it is doubtful if

any one of them ever wore so spacious a shoe as the fair Maud on the

banks of the Wye. King John, in revenge for succour refused, visited

the town with his vengeance; and altogether its early history is as

stirring as any to be met with in these parts.

[Illustration: GOODRICH CASTLE (_p. 138_).]

By the time Hay is reached the Wye is fast becoming a stream of

considerable size. Now entering Herefordshire, it flows through a broad

vale, cultivated and mellow, where Clifford Castle stands a hoary ruin.

Here, if history speak true, was born, in the reign of Henry II., one

of great and general notoriety, whose name--or _nom de guerre_, as

Dryden has it--is woven richly into the ballads of that and later days;

for doubtless her beauty, like her failings, was great, and her death

untimely and cruel:--

"Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver;

Fair Rosamond was but her _nom de guerre_."

Fair Rosamond was born about the year 1140. How much of the story

coming to us through the medium of ballads and folk-tales be true, it

is now quite impossible to discover, but popular fancy still clings

to the idea of a lonely and innocently unfortunate girl installed at

Woodstock, protected by a nurse who proved insufficient when pitted

against the cunning of a scandalised wife and queen. Fair Rosamond was

buried at Godstow, and upon her tomb was carved the famous epitaph:--

"Hic jacet in tumba Rosa Mundi, non Rosa munda:

Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet."

The railway has not improved the situation of this old castle:--

"Clifford has fallen--howe'er sublime,

Mere fragments wrestle still with time;

Yet as they perish, sure and slow,

And, rolling, dash the stream below,

They raise tradition's glowing scene,--

The clue of silk, the wrathful queen;

And link in memory's firmest bond

The love-lorn tale of Rosamond."

Passing between wooded eminences, broad fields, and peaceful farms,

the Wye at length reaches the suburbs, and then the ancient city of

Hereford.

[Illustration: ROSS CHURCH (_p. 136_).]

Hereford was a town of importance even at the dawn of English history.

Outside its walls stood the palace of Offa, the greatest of all the

Mercian princes; and during the reign of the Mercian kings it was the

principal town of Mercia. Ethelfleda, sister of Edward the Elder,

governed the place with great skill, and she it was who constructed

the castle that guarded the town, and constructed it so well that it

proved to be one of the strongest in all England. Leland has this to

say of the keep: "High, and very strong, having in the outer wall

ten semicircular towers, and one great tower within"; and adds that

"it hath been one of the largest, fayrest, and strongest castles in

England."

Here, again, the wily Llewelyn comes upon the scene, for he led his

men from the fastness of the Upper Wye, pillaged and burnt the place,

murdered the bishop and his assistants, set the cathedral ablaze, and

left what had been a fair town a mass of smouldering ruins.

A visitor to this ancient city will find it hard to realise that

anything but peace and goodwill ever reigned in all the district, for

in these days of bustle and worry it would be difficult to discover

in all Great Britain a more placid, steady-going, self-satisfied

city than Hereford. Well laid out, clean, at least reasonably

well-to-do--although it does not lay claim to be a place of great

industry, relying more upon the church and the market than upon the

manufactory--there seems to be a perpetual air of Sunday hovering over

the town. The very visitors--and they are many--move soberly about the

streets, and appear to have become imbued with the spirit of the place.

No one can be many minutes in Hereford without detecting that not

only the people but the very buildings take their key from the grand

cathedral that, calmly gazing into the face of Time, has seen of men

and houses generations come and generations go.

Hereford as an ecclesiastical centre is one of the most ancient in

Great Britain, but until the commission of Offa's grievous crime it

must have been comparatively unimportant, with a small wooden structure

for a church. Offa's perfidy changed all that. It will be remembered

that the ruthless prince treacherously induced Ethelbert, King of the

East Angles, to visit his Court, where he had him foully murdered, and

buried in the church. Offa, of course, then seized Ethelbert's crown.

Having secured this, and being safely installed in the place of his

murdered guest, he found time to repent; and that his repentance might

seem the more real, he endowed with great riches the church in which

lay the body of his victim, and soon the wooden building gave place

to a stone edifice. No doubt the king's offerings greatly assisted

in founding Hereford on a solid ecclesiastical basis, but the effect

of his gifts was evanescent, compared with the value of his victim's

bones, as an attraction to the devout. Ethelbert's remains had not long

been buried in the cathedral ere they began to work miracles, and soon

great numbers of people from near and from afar sought the good saint's

assistance, so that great riches flowed to the church and town; and

from that day to this Hereford has continued to prosper.

For two hundred years the church built over the bones of Ethelbert

stood, before the Welsh, as has been told, laid the place in ruins.

In 1079 Bishop Robert of Lorraine began to rebuild, and the work

was not completed until early in the sixteenth century. This is the

building--many times restored--that stands to the present day. More

than a hundred years ago (in 1786) the western tower collapsed,

bringing down with it most of the west front, and this, as well as many

other parts of the cathedral, was rebuilt.

Inside the cathedral are many interesting monuments of men who played

large parts in the history of England, and, besides these, the

cathedral has a unique treasure in the far-famed "Mappa Mundi," a

production of one De Haldingham, who lived in the fourteenth century.

This map, if not the oldest, is at least one of the very oldest in

the world. Havergal says of it: "The world is here represented as

round, surrounded by the ocean. At the top of the map is represented

Paradise, with its rivers and trees; also the eating of the forbidden

fruit and the expulsion of our first parents. Above is a remarkable

representation of the Day of Judgment, with the Virgin Mary interceding

for the faithful, who are seen rising from their graves, and being

led within the walls of Heaven. The map is chiefly filled with ideas

taken from Herodotus, Solinus, Isidore, Pliny, and other ancient

historians. There are numerous figures of towns, animals, birds, and

fish, with grotesque customs such as the mediæval geographers believed

to exist in different parts of the world. The four great cities are

very prominent--Jerusalem as the centre of the world; Babylon, with

its famous tower; Rome, the capital of the world ... and Troy.... In

Great Britain most of the cathedrals are mentioned, but of Ireland the

author seems to have known very little." Truly a wonderful record of

the geographical knowledge of the Middle Ages!

Hereford was the birthplace of Nell Gwynne, orange-seller, actress,

and Court favourite--short, red of hair or nearly so, and with feet

so small as to cause general amusement. The street in which she was

born is now called Gwynne Lane, and the place is still pointed out to

tourists who are interested in the story of the famous beauty. David

Garrick also was born in the city.

Before leaving Hereford, it may be worth while to note that here, as

at many other places, it was once the custom to insert a clause in the

indentures of apprentices "that they should not be compelled to live on

salmon more than two days in the week." Needless to say, no such clause

is now necessary. In 1234 the wolves became so numerous about the

outskirts of the city, that a proclamation called upon all the king's

liege people to assist in destroying them.

And now leaving the cathedral city, our river flows under the Wye

Bridge, built so long ago as 1490, with six noble arches, and proceeds

on its way towards Ross. Four miles below Hereford, the most important

of all the tributaries that spill their floods into the winding Wye is

met with. This is the Lug, which itself absorbs the waters of several

smaller rivers on its way southwards. The meeting of the Lug with the

Wye takes place at the little village of Mordiford, where once upon a

time an enormous serpent, winged and awful, used to betake itself from

feasting upon men and women and little children to drink of the waters

of the Wye. This terrible serpent was destroyed by a malefactor, who

was offered a pardon should he accomplish the task of ridding the good

people of the sore pest; and it is sad to learn that in killing the

serpent he inhaled so much of its poisonous breath that he died almost

at the same time as the monster he had brought low. But the results of

a later event, almost as important, and awe-inspiring, are to be seen

not far from this part of the Wye. They are known as "The Wonder," a

mile and a half from Woolhope, in a parish which, one would think,

should be called Miracle, but is really called Marcle. To best describe

what "The Wonder" is, we will quote Sir Richard Baker's "Chronicles

of England" as follows:--"In the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth

a prodigious earthquake happened in the east part of Herefordshire,

at a little town called Kinnaston. On the 17th of February, at six

o'clock in the evening, the earth began to open, and a hill, with a

rock under it, making at first a great hollowing noise which was heard

a great way off, lifted itself up and began to travel, bearing along

with it the trees that grew upon it, the sheepfolds, and flocks of

sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was

first moved it left a gaping distance 40 foot broad and fourscore

ells long: the whole field was about twenty acres. Passing along, it

overthrew a chapel standing in the way, removed a yew-tree planted in

the churchyard from the west to the east; with the like force it thrust

before it highways, sheepfolds, hedges, the trees; made tilled ground

pasture, and again turned pasture into tillage. Having walked in this

sort from Saturday evening till Monday noon, it then stood still."

Surely, this is a record, even in the land of Saturday-to-Monday trips!

[Illustration: SYMOND'S YAT (_p. 140_).]

[Illustration: THE FERRY, SYMOND'S YAT.]

Between Hereford and Ross the Wye flows quietly, and without many

striking features, either as regards the scenery or the stream itself.

Upon its breast float pleasure-boats in great numbers, although in the

dry season of the year, unless the midmost channel is rigidly adhered

to, numbers of shallows interrupt the passage even of skiffs of light

draught, for the river occasionally spreads out to a great surface,

and runs proportionately shallow over rock and gravel. Indeed, it is

not until the ancient town of Ross is reached that the Wye becomes a

general favourite with the floating population.

Ross, as seen from the surrounding country, appears to be standing

a-tiptoe, trying to touch the sky with the tip of its beautiful

spire. The church with its slender spire attracts the eye from a

great distance--it is, to all appearances, the one prominent object

in all the country round about--and the first sight of it has caused

travellers to sigh, for to see it for the first time is to be a long,

long way from it. Here in this tiny town of Ross lived and died a man

whose name is known, one might say, not at all, but whose descriptive

appellation, given to him whilst he was still alive, will be recognised

the world over. This is John Kyrle, "The Man of Ross."

[Illustration: MONMOUTH (_p. 141_).]

The history of the town of Ross is principally a mass of details,

authentic and apocryphal, regarding the life, times, and labours, the

recreations, walks, works, and ways of "The Man of Ross." Few places

are so entirely given up to the memory of one man as is Ross to the

memory of John Kyrle. Everywhere in that quaint and clean little town,

"The Man of Ross," in some form or other, meets the eye. Here his

favourite walk, there the park he gave to the people, again the pew

in which he worshipped, the house in which he lived, the buildings he

reared, the streets he made--everything tells of John Kyrle. He was

born in the year 1637, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford,

where is still to be seen a silver tankard bearing his name. As this

tankard holds five pints, it is to be inferred that the student who was

to become "The Man of Ross" was a lusty drinker, although in after-life

he proved himself to be a man of abstemious habits. His long life--he

died aged eighty-eight--was devoted to doing good to all whom he could

help, improving not only man but town and country as well:--

"But all our praises why should lords engross?

Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:

Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,

And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.

Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?

From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?

Not to the skies in useless columns tost,

Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But, clear and artless, pouring through the plain,

Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?

Whose seats the weary traveller repose?

Who taught the heaven-directed spire to rise?

'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies."

So says Pope in his "Moral Essays," and, in saying this and much more

about the good man, scattered the fame of John Kyrle far and wide. It

is pleasant to know that a man who showed himself so solicitous that

others should taste of enjoyment was able himself to take great delight

in simple things. "He dearly loved a goose," says Leitch Ritchie, "and

was vain of his dexterity in carving it. During the operation, which

he invariably took upon himself, he always repeated one of those old

sayings and standing witticisms that seem to attach themselves with

peculiar preference to the cooked goose. He never had roast beef on

his table save and except on Christmas day, and malt liquors and good

Hereford cyder were the only beverages ever introduced."

The good man's bones rest in Ross Church, the spire of which he had

repaired; and to this day are shown the trees that have forced a way

through chinks in the wall and floor of the building, so that their

branches and leaves might droop as though in the attitude of mourning

over his grave. From the churchyard there is to be had a magnificent

view of the Wye sweeping in a great curve far below, the waters

hastening on to lose themselves in the Severn. From Ross to the mouth

of the Wye, those who can afford the time should make the journey by

boat. It will be well to discard the use of adjectives and exclamations

in taking this trip, for the most gifted in the use of these parts of

speech will speedily find themselves at their wits' end for words to

express their admiration of the scenery.

[Illustration: _Photo: R. Tudor Williams, Monmouth._

THE MONNOW BRIDGE AND GATE-HOUSE, MONMOUTH (_p. 141_).]

Midway between Ross and Monmouth stands Goodrich Castle, grandly seated

upon a steep, heavily-wooded hill--a castle built so long ago that the

memory of its beginning is lost, in the haze of ancient days. During

the Civil War it was besieged and at length successfully stormed by

the Roundheads, in 1646. It is in form a parallelogram, having a tower

at each angle, and a keep in the south-west part of the enclosure;

and, viewed from the Wye, it is a splendid ruin, trees that cling to

the face of the cliffs heightening the effect of the picture. The Wye,

flowing swiftly, soon sweeps one's boat round its many bends, until

the district known as the Forest of Dean is reached, lying between the

Wye and the Severn. Striking scenes of stream and forest-clad cliffs,

of castles and courts, of abbeys haunted by memories of events rich

in historical interest, now follow one another as rapidly as changes

in a kaleidoscope. Courtfield claims the honour of being the place

where Henry V. was nursed; and there is a cradle to substantiate the

claim. After passing Mailscot Wood, the river forms itself into a loop

like an elongated horseshoe. On one side of the narrow neck of land

are the famous Coldwell Rocks, the beginning of the great limestone

cliffs that, onward to the sea, hem in the stream, and carry on their

rugged sides clinging woods and ivy. Rains and storms have beaten

these Coldwell Rocks into fantastic shapes, until to the traveller

who first sets eyes upon them they seem to be castles cut out of

stone by a race of mighty giants. "Castles and towers, amphitheatres

and fortifications, battlements and obelisks, mock the wanderer, who

fancies himself transported into the ruins of a city of some extinct

race."[8]

[Illustration: TINTERN ABBEY, FROM THE WYE (_p. 145_).]

Anyone who has seen the beauty of both the Moselle and the Wye must

be struck by the similarity between the two rivers. The Moselle, to

be sure, is in every way more important than the Wye--in depth and

breadth of stream, in height of the bluffs that at many points form

the banks, and in the number of castles that crown the hills; but,

notwithstanding these differences, they might almost be called twin

rivers. There are no neatly-trimmed vineyards sloping down the sides

of the Wye heights, but, on the other hand, the Moselle cannot show

such grand forests as can the English stream. And each river, at least

once in its course, doubles back upon itself, so that the spectator

can trace the loop, and see the stream flowing far beneath on either

hand. At Symond's Yat, a little below Coldwell Rocks, the neck of land

that divides the Wye from itself is only some 600 yards across; and by

standing on the rocky plateau, one may see the river flowing by on both

sides. The prospect, one of the finest in all England, embraces large

parts of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire, including

Coppet Hill, Huntsham, Rocklands, Whitchurch, Goodrich Castle, Coldwell

Rocks, the Forest of Dean, Courtfield, and--it is difficult to escape

this--the spire of Ross Church.

In hurrying between these gigantic cliffs, and sweeping round the loop,

it is only natural that the Wye, born with a turbulent disposition,

should have many savage encounters with the rocks; and, now grown

so mighty, the waters roar their anger in deep-lunged notes. Many

obstacles impede the course of the stream, for storms still continue

occasionally to hurl great masses of rock from their positions; and

altogether, were one to be given the choice of seeing only one part of

the Wye, Symond's Yat should be the chosen spot.

[Illustration: THE NAVE, TINTERN ABBEY.]

Passing between Lords Wood and Lady-Park Wood and skirting Greatwood

and Newton Court, the Wye arrives at Monmouth. Encircled by hills, and

itself seated high, this town, still unspoiled by the modern builder

and restorer, occupies a position between the Wye and the Monnow.

Monmouth has had its ups and downs; for long before the Conquest a

fortress existed here, and to build a castle has ever been to invite

a siege. In the days of Henry III. the castle was levelled with the

ground so effectively that Lambarde writes: "Thus the glorie of

Monmouth had clean perished; ne hade it pleased Gode longe after in

that place to give life to the noble King Henry V., who of the same

is called Henry of Monmouth." John of Gaunt lived here, and Henry

IV. also, and, as the ancient writer says, Henry V. was born in the

castle. This event has not been forgotten, for a statue of the popular

king stands opposite the Town Hall in Agincourt Square, the centre of

the town. In more ancient days Monmouth was a walled town, and one of

the four gates of the wall still stands; and a bridge built in 1272,

remarkably narrow, but sturdy and strong, still spans the Monnow;

while the meagre ruins of the castle look down from the brow of

the river-cliff on the meadows by this tributary stream. St. Mary's

Church has a spire 200 feet in height; St. Thomas's Chapel, dating

from the days of the Normans, stands in the centre of the part of the

town which used to be given up to the making of the renowned Monmouth

cap, of which Fuller, in his "Worthies," says: "These were the most

ancient, general, warm, and profitable coverings of men's heads in this

island. It is worth our pains to observe the tenderness of our kings to

preserve the trade of cap-making, and what long and strong struggling

our State had to keep up the using thereof, so many thousands of people

being thereby maintained in the land, especially before the invention

of fulling-mills, all caps before that time being wrought, beaten, and

thickened by the hands and feet of men, till those mills, as they eased

many of their labour, outed more of their livelihood." Not far from

the parish church is the picturesque remnant of a Benedictine priory,

founded in the reign of Henry I. by Wyhenoe, third Lord of Monmouth;

and here it is not improbable that Geoffrey of Monmouth, compiler of

the fabulous "History of the Britons," out of which grew the Poem of

the Table Round, was educated.

The Monnow, which flows into the Wye below Monmouth, has for its

chief tributary the Dore, which winds its way through that delightful

region known far and wide as the Golden Valley. This valley is

fitly styled Golden, though it has received its designation from a

mistaken derivation of its name, which means "water"--that and nothing

more--being but a form of the Welsh _dwr_. Round it ring the hills, not

bald and craggy, nor morass-bound, but gentle and lush and green, for

the valley lies just out of the grip of the mountainous districts of

Wales. Here the fields are fresh, the undulations capped with glorious

trees, and the whole valley is chequered with tints; for it is a region

rich of soil, and highly cultivated. One of the most interesting places

on the banks of the stream is the little village of Abbey Dore, where

is the remnant of an ancient abbey, now forming the parish church. It

was begun for the Cistercians, by Robert of Ewias, in the reign of

Henry I., but was only finished in the days of the third Henry. Not

less attractive to the antiquary is the tiny Norman church of Kilpeck,

celebrated for the richness of its decorations. Near by there once

stood a castle, but of this nothing now remains but the mound, a deep

moat, and fragments of the walls.

Another tributary of the Monnow is the Honddu, which flows down through

the Vale of Ewias, past the ruins of Llanthony Priory. This famous

house seems to have been founded in the early years of the twelfth

century by William de Lacy, a Norman knight, and Ernisius, chaplain

to Maud, wife of Henry I. At first it had a prosperous career, but

the wild Welshmen soon fell upon it, and the Prior and his brethren

were forced to betake themselves to the more peaceable regions of

Gloucestershire. When men and times became quieter, however, the monks

returned. The remains of the Priory are still beautiful. In 1809

Walter Savage Landor purchased the estate on which they stand, and

set about making great improvements. Mr. Colvin, in his "Landor,"

says: "He imported sheep from Segovia, and applied to Southey and

other friends for tenants who should introduce and teach improved

methods of cultivation. The inhabitants were drunken, impoverished,

and morose: he was bent upon reclaiming and civilising them. The woods

had suffered from neglect or malice: he would clothe the sides of the

valley with cedars of Lebanon. With that object, he bought two thousand

cones, calculated to yield a hundred seeds each, intending to do ten

times as much afterwards, and exulting in the thought of the million

cedar-trees which he would thus leave for the shelter and the delight

of posterity." All Landor's schemes, however, came to nought. Before

long he found himself in embarrassed circumstances: Llanthony was, by

arrangement, taken out of his hands and vested in those of trustees,

and his half-built mansion was pulled down.

[Illustration: GATEWAY AT CHEPSTOW.]

A little below Monmouth the Trothey, a much smaller stream than the

Monnow, also joins the Wye. The banks from Monmouth onwards to the

sea are steep and well wooded, and for the greater part of the way a

splendid and well-kept road winds along the side of the right bank.

Far below, the river is continually appearing and disappearing; and

the trees dig their feet into the rocks and seem precariously to

cling as they dip down towards the stream. Occasionally a cliff more

than usually near to the perpendicular has managed to ward off the

encroaching growths of forest and bush and ivy, and to stand bold-faced

to the sun; but generally there is foliage to make more refreshing to

the sight the precipitous banks.

Rivers have ever attracted to their banks poets, who of all men most

closely search the heart of Nature in her peaceful and gentle moods;

but few streams have enjoyed the good fortune of the Wye to have their

very spirit caught and shaped into imperishable verse. Wordsworth's

noble poem, "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on

revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13th, 1798,"

breathes the inmost soul of river and hills, and of the tranquil,

meditative atmosphere that fills the glorious valley. No poet has held

his ear so close to Nature's bosom as Wordsworth, and in these lines he

has pictured and glorified the Wye as no pen may hope to picture and

glorify it again. To quote but the opening score of lines:--

"Five years have passed; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain springs

With a sweet inland murmur. Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

Among the woods and copses, nor disturb

The wild green landscape. Once again I see

These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!"

Meditation, contemplation, serenity, each not unmixed with pathos, are

the keynotes of this part of the Wye valley; and our river would have

done well enough if not another poet had ever afterwards sung of its

banks and flood. But this was not to be its fate: for has not Tennyson

told us in "In Memoriam" how "half the babbling Wye" is hushed by the

Severn, whose mightier tide drives back its flood?--

"The Wye is hushed, nor moved along,

And hushed my deepest grief of all

When filled with tears that, cannot fall

I brim with sorrow drowning song.

"The tide flows down, the wave again

Is vocal in its wooded walls;

My deeper anguish also falls,

And I can speak a little then."

It is at the Bargain Pool, past the pretty village of Llandogo, that

the Severn tide is first met. Now, although the scenery is sublime,

there can be no gainsaying that the rise and fall of the tide mars the

beauty of the Wye. Instead of the clear mountain water, the stream is

turbid, and at low tide the banks present great stretches of soft mud.

For the first time the stream now takes on a commercial aspect, lazy

barges floating up and down, and a few enterprising little steamers

making their cautious way round the sharp bends.

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

CHEPSTOW CASTLE (_p. 146_).]

But forgetting the blemish, if blemish it be, the traveller can set his

thoughts upon and his face towards one of the most inspiring of all

the ancient memorials of England's past, the home of the Cistercian

monks dedicated to the Virgin Mary--Tintern Abbey. Coming round a bend

in the river one catches sight of the beautiful ruin with startling

suddenness. It stands close by the waterside, on what was once a

meadow stretching away from the Wye. Here the hills rise in a complete

circle, and nestling in the midst of this amphitheatre is the abbey,

a ruin, it is true, yet not so mutilated by the hand of Time as to

make it impossible or even difficult at this day to imagine it as it

stood in all its completeness and beauty. Whether Tintern, unspoiled

by Time and neglect, was as impressive as it is in its decay, though

the greenest of green grass now grows on the floor once trodden by the

white-robed monks, and the rooks sit in a jet-black line on the top of

the roofless walls--one may very well doubt. Those who have passed even

a day in and about the ancient abbey will find it easy to believe that

its history is one of serenity and peace. The hills that ring it round

stand like a cordon of mighty giants to beat back all worldliness that

would enter the charmed circle. The very air hangs heavy and still, and

the river, forgetting its wild youth and stormy middle age, passes by,

if one might so describe it, with bared head and hushed breath. Here

for hundreds of years lived successive generations of monks, having

little, wanting little, passing their days in the deepest peace and

solitude; and though they have long since vanished, they have left

behind them what is perhaps the finest monastic ruin in the kingdom.

Shortly after the dawn of the twelfth century one Walter de Clare

founded Tintern for Cistercian monks, and in the thirteenth century a

lord of Chepstow, Roger de Bigod, built the abbey. Cruciform in shape,

it was 228 feet in length, 70 feet high, and 37 feet in breadth, with

transepts 150 feet long. When King Henry VIII. took possession of the

monasteries, he allowed this to fall into rapid decay, and at length

presented it to the Earl of Worcester. The ruins now belong to the

Duke of Beaufort, and they are watched and guarded from further decay

with admirable vigilance, each particular stone being carefully noted,

and every moulded arch and mullioned window--indeed, the very ivy and

grass--receiving close attention. The magnificent eastern window, 64

feet in breadth, is but one feature of a ruin that attracts multitudes

of visitors to the valley of the Wye.

Between Tintern and the little metropolis of the lower Wye, Chepstow,

duty to one's sense of sight requires him to scale the summit of

Wyndcliff. Once on top, nine counties, according to Bevan, can be

seen--to wit, Gloucester, Somerset, Wilts, Devon, Glamorgan, Monmouth,

Brecknock, Hereford, and Worcester. Not only for the curiosity of a

prospect which in its sweep takes in so many shires, but also for the

beauty of the view, this ascent of the Wyndcliff should not be missed.

For an exquisite blending of rock and river, forests, mountains, and

plain, towns and villages, ruins and farmhouses, roads like white-silk

threads blown upon the face of the land, black railways, drifting

ships, it is not too much to say that the finest views in all the land

can do no more than claim to be its peer.

After we have passed on the left Llancaut and on the right Pierce

Woods, the sturdy old town of Chepstow comes into view. The castle,

from the river, seems to have grown out of the living rocks, which

here rise sheer from the water to a great height, and form a natural

defence that must have rendered the fortress impregnable to all attack

from the water. Supposed to have been built in the eleventh and rebuilt

in the thirteenth century, it experienced its most stirring times in

the days of the Civil War. It was held by the Royalists; and there

first appeared before it Colonel Morgan, who, with singular valour

and determination, carried it by assault. Later on Sir Nicholas Kemys

successfully surprised the place, which action brought before the

battlements Cromwell himself, who, however, could not spare the time

personally to direct the operations. His substitute, Colonel Ewer, with

great skill conducted the siege, and ultimately forced the king's men

to throw open the gates.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE WYNDCLIFF.]

[Illustration: OLD MONASTERY ON THE WYE.]

Several parts of an ancient wall that once surrounded Chepstow still

remain, with the watch-towers complete; and one gate dating from the

sixteenth century--the Town Gate--still stands, a curious archway

across the principal street, a thoroughfare that slopes steeply down

to the Wye. A church of great antiquity is Chepstow Church, built in

the days of the Normans, and containing several monuments of unusual

interest, with the grave of Henry Marten, one of the signatories of

King Charles's death-warrant, who spent many long years as a prisoner

in Chepstow Castle. One of the towers of the castle is called Marten's

Tower, an unintended commemoration of the Roundhead's imprisonment

within its walls.

Bidding a final good-bye to towns and tributaries, but still retaining

its rugged banks and, in a measure, its stately woods, the Wye

makes straight for the sea, where this child of the mountains, after

swallowing the largess brought down to it by a score of smaller

streams, is itself, in turn, swallowed in the greater flood of the

Severn. To the very last, however, the Wye retains its individuality

and character--picturesque ever, picturesque to the end. From its fount

on Plinlimmon to the end of its course of a hundred and thirty miles,

where it gracefully rolls into the broad estuary, it has scarcely ever,

even for a mile, been commonplace.

/E. W. Sabel./

[Illustration]

[Illustration: NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE USK, TALSARN-SIDE.]

THE USK.

The Black Mountains--Trecastle--The Gaer--Brecon--The Brecknock

Beacons--Crickhowell--Abergavenny--Usk--Caerleon and the Arthurian

Legend--Christchurch--Newport.

The wild and inclement Black Mountains, "Fforest Fawr," between

Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, collect the first drops that,

trickling down the side of the hills, gather volume and strength

and in time become rivers that are the delight and pride of a

country. Three springs, clear and tiny, away up the dark mountain

side, where Talsarn towers to an altitude of more than 2,500 feet,

are the fountain-heads of a river that, after an extended course of

seven-and-fifty miles in the general shape of a bow, joins the sea at

Newport--the /Usk/.[9] Not far away are the sources of many

another river--the Tawe and the Neath, to name but two; but of all the

streams that are born in this cheerless region the Usk is by far the

most important.

Hurrying on its way with the leaps and falls that are characteristic

of mountain streams, our river is first joined by the Henwen brook, a

tiny stream that has the honour of forming a part of the boundary-line

between two shires. Beyond the wooded vale of Cwm Wysc the Usk receives

the Hydfer, and at length comes to Trecastle, once a place of rare

show and importance, but now modest enough in all conscience. Here

may still be seen a mound and large earthworks of Bernard Newmarch's

Castle. Below this village the Usk receives the waters of Drayton's

"Cray," the first stream of real importance that flows into the

greater river; and, after leaping a ledge of rock in a beautiful fall,

continues its way through a tract of country once the hiding-place of

a swarm of determined robbers and outlaws--the Forest of Brecon. At

one time this region lay at the mercy of these desperadoes; and it

seems to have been necessary for Edward III. to build castles for the

protection of people compelled to journey through the forest. Henry

IV. sojourned in one of these fortresses in 1403, and thence issued a

general pardon to all the rebels who would cease from troubling; but

the chances are that this wild and well-nigh inaccessible district

offered more attractions to the turbulent robbers than did the prospect

of hard and honest work, coupled with the king's pardon. The Usk now

receives a goodly contribution from the Yscir; and between the two

streams are the remains of a Roman camp, the Gaer, rectangular in form

and believed to have been in command of Ostorius Scapula. The ruins of

this fort are remarkably well preserved, the walls in places standing

six feet high, although partly overgrown with bush. Many valuable coins

and other curiosities belonging to the Roman period have here been

excavated. Inclining to the south, the Usk now flows through a lovely

bit of wooded country, and reaches the village of Llanspyddid, where an

attractive view is to be had of the river, still in its youth, running

with merry song over shallows and between high picturesque banks.

Brecon, occupying a highly picturesque situation, is the first place of

any importance that the Usk comes to in its flight from the mountains.

Two streams join the river at this point, the Tarel and the Honddu;

and, as the town is ringed completely round with high mountains, it may

be said to lie in the bottom of a huge bowl. Near by, the Beacons, twin

peaks, the highest mountains in South Wales, tower to the sky, and add

grandeur to the beauty of the neighbouring hills. In the reign of good

Queen Bess, Churchyard was moved to verse at the sight of Brecon and

its surroundings. Thus he sings:--

"The towne is built as in a pit it were

By waterside, all lapt about with hill;

You may behold a ruinous castle there,

Somewhat defaste, the walles yet standeth still.

Small narrowe streetes through all the towne ye have,

Yet in the same are sundrie houses brave;

Well built without, yea trim and fayre within,

With sweete prospect, that shall your favour win.

The river Oske and Hondie runnes thereby,

Fower bridges good, of stone stands on each streame."

Though a town of great antiquity, Brecon, when compared with many

places in Wales, is almost modern, for it seems to have first come into

prominence in the days of the Normans, who out of the ruins of the old

Roman fortress already referred to built the first stronghold here.

It was, of course, a walled town, with ten turrets and five gates,

and traces of this old wall still exist. The castle was a strong one,

occupying a commanding position. In one of its towers Morton, Bishop of

Ely, lay in prison, given into the custody of the Duke of Buckingham

by Richard III., who was jealous of the bishop's power; and here the

gaoler and prisoner, neither of them well disposed towards the king,

plotted to marry Henry of Richmond with the Lady Elizabeth, and thus

heal the breach between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. So

Morton was allowed to escape, while Buckingham, marching against the

king, fell into his enemy's hands and lost his head at Salisbury. The

Castle of Brecon met its fate in sorry manner. When the great Civil War

broke out, and king and Parliament came to blows, the people of the

town, fearing that the fortress would be garrisoned by one party or the

other, and that the place would be besieged and themselves visited with

all the danger and suffering that waits upon active war, took matters

into their own hands by demolishing the stronghold, of which only some

ivy-clad walls, with the Ely tower, now remain, overlooking the Honddu.

Charles I., in his feverish flight, after the disastrous battle of

Naseby, put up for a time at Priory House; and in a humble hostelry

in High Street, then known as "The Shoulder of Mutton," Mrs. Siddons,

queen of actresses, was born in 1755, her parents being temporarily

resident here.

The chief glory of the town in these days is the Priory Church of St.

John, founded by Bernard Newmarch, in the reign of Henry I., in the

hope of atoning for the murders and other crimes that he had committed

in hewing his way to the place of power he occupied in this part of

Wales. It is a building of unusual interest, predominantly Norman in

style, but with Early English and Decorated additions. Another feature

of Brecon is the massive bridge of seven strongly buttressed arches

which spans the Usk.

Taking a south-easterly direction, the Usk flows away from the county

town, and soon receives a tiny river that comes from the towering

heights of the Beacons, locally called "Arthur's Chair," and forming

one of the finest of the sights which Wales offers to her lovers.

"Artures Hille," says Leland, "is three good Walche miles south-west

from Brekenok, and in the veri toppe of the hille is a faire welle

spring. This Hille of summe is countid the hiest Hille of Wales, and in

a veri cleere day a mannne may see from hit a part of Malvern hilles,

and Glocester, and Bristow, and part of Devenshire and Cornwale.

There be divers other hilles by Artures Hille, the wich, with hit, be

communely caullid Banne Brekeniane." Wood, in his "Rivers of Wales,"

declares that "the well here mentioned does not exist," so that it

would have been better, perhaps, if Leland had done as Churchyard did,

who wrote of nothing he had not seen--if his verse is to be taken quite

literally. He says:--

"Nere Breaknoke Towne, there is a mountaine hye,

Which shewes so huge, it is full hard to clime.

The mountaine seemes so monstrous to the eye,

Yet thousands doe repayre to that sometime.

And they that stand right on the top shal see

A wonder great, as people doe report;

Which common brute and saying true may bee,

But since, in deede, I did not there resort,

I write no more, then world will witnesse well."

From the Brecknock Beacons there is a truly remarkable view; and for

those unable or unwilling to climb, there is the sight of the mountains

themselves.

[Illustration: THE USK AT BRECKNOCK.]

Continuing its course to the east and south, the Usk passes on,

skirting Bwlch, a mountain over which the main road runs, offering

glimpses on one hand of the valley of the Wye, and on the other of the

valley of the Usk. Presently, our stream passes by the meagre remains

of Dinas Castle, which had the honour of being stormed by Alfred the

Great's daughter, Ethelfleda, and taken too, although garrisoned at

the time by three-and-thirty valiant Welsh women; for the men were all

fighting far afield. Through a lovely valley the Usk reaches its second

town of consequence--Crickhowell. This "preatie tounlet stondith as in

a valley upon Wisk," Leland says; and, indeed, its situation on the

north-east bank of the river is beautiful. Whichever way one looks,

the scenery is charming in its attractiveness and rich in the romantic

and the picturesque. Close to the Abergavenny road stand the ruins of

what once must have been a castle of very considerable dimensions,

which covered as much as eight acres of ground. Even in the days of

Elizabeth this castle was nothing more than a ruin. No great distance

from Crickhowell is the Well of St. Cenau, eagerly sought for by the

newly-married, for to drink its waters first was to secure command of

the house for life:--

"'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'

He to the countryman said;

But the countryman smiled as the stranger spoke,

And sheepishly shook his head.

'I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,

And left my wife in the porch;

But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,

For she took a bottle to church.'"

[Illustration: BIT OF THE ROMAN WALL AT CAERLEON (_p. 155_).]

Farther down stream is Llangattoc Park, with its roomy cave, known

as Eglwys Faen, "the stone church"; and beyond is Llangwryney, where

Richard, Earl of Clare, passing through the wood, preceded by pipers,

was set upon by the Welsh and murdered. Here the Gwryney joins the Usk,

which, flowing through scenery that has been called the "Garden of

Wales," and passing from Brecknock into Monmouth, reaches the ancient

town of Abergavenny, lying in the shadow of the Sugar-Loaf Mountain

at the junction of the Usk and the Gavenny--"the brook that christneth

Abergeney." As is the case with so many Welsh towns, Abergavenny is

wholly surrounded by high hills, but here the valley is spacious and

fruitful. Of this place Churchyard, whose poetry is met with at every

turn, says:--

"Aborganie, behind I kept in store,

Whose seat and soyle with best may well compare.

The towne somewhat on steepe and mounting hill,

With pastor grounds and meddowes great at will:

On every side huge mountaines hard and hye,

And some thicke woods, to please the gazer's eye."

"Hard and hye" the mountains do rise and tower above the luxurious

valley of "pastor grounds." Not so long ago all the streets of

Abergavenny were narrow and crooked, but of late years there has been

a great display of public enterprise. Whether the changes that have

been effected are to be regarded as improvements is questionable;

for with the widening of the thoroughfares and the building of a new

town hall and markets, and so forth, the individuality of a town is

apt to disappear; but the residents may be pardoned for thinking

themselves to be much better off than were their forefathers. To be

sure, the town has scanty remains of a castle rising from a tree-clad

hill to overlook the houses and the river. Part of the castle area is

covered with houses, and another part has been converted into public

gardens. The associations of the fortress are none of the noblest, for

historians tell us that "it was dishonoured by treason oftener than

any other castle in Wales." It seems to have been the practice of the

Norman lords of Abergavenny Castle to invite neighbouring Welsh chiefs

to feasts within the walls of the stronghold, and then treacherously

murder them. Wood tells of one of the most dastardly of these deeds.

"Soon after the murder of Trahaern Vechan, at Slansavaddon lake, by

William de Braose (lord of Abergavenny Castle), the Welsh, inflamed

with resentment and revenge, commanded by Sitsylt ap Dyfnwald and other

Welsh chieftains, surprised the Castle of Abergavenny, and took the

whole garrison prisoners. William de Braose recovered his castle by

composition; and after the reconciliation of the Welsh lords to King

Henry, /A.D./ 1175, he invited Sitsylt, his son Geofrey, and

other men of note to a feast, under pretence of congratulation upon the

late peace; when, contriving cause for dispute, he called upon his men,

who were ready for that purpose, and most treacherously murdered the

unsuspicious and unarmed Welsh; then proceeded to Sitsylt's house, slew

his son Cadwallader in his mother's presence, and, setting fire to the

house, carried her away to his castle."

Once upon a time Abergavenny was noted for flannels, but this industry

has been wrested from it by more enterprising competitors, while

the manufacture of wigs, for which it was once noted, has succumbed

to change of fashion. St. Mary's Church, a fine fourteenth-century

church, occupying the site of a Norman church which was attached to a

Benedictine priory, contains many ancient monuments, amongst others

that of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook, who, together with his

brother, was beheaded, after the Battle of Banbury, in 1469; and in the

Herbert chapel is "a Jesse tree," of which Murray's "Handbook" says

that it is "perhaps one of the most perfect extant."

Leaving this lovely town, the Usk makes more directly for the sea. A

few miles away to the east, in the valley of one of its tributaries,

are the ruins of Raglan Castle, standing on a richly-wooded eminence

not far from the village of the same name. It was begun not earlier

than the reign of Henry V., and apparently not finished until the

time of Charles I.; and so strong was it that it had the distinction

of being one of the last fortresses in the kingdom to surrender to

Cromwell's men. It would be interesting to recall the story of the

siege which it endured, and to describe the lovely remains of it; but

it lies too far out of our course, and we must return to our river and

follow it through the pretty scenery it traverses to the town to which

it has lent its name. In days long gone by, Usk had to bear many a sore

blow from Owen Glendower, but now it has no more alarming invaders

than the placid, contemplative wielders of the rod--for here the Usk

is famous for its salmon and its trout. Standing upon a tongue of land

formed by the confluence of the Olwey with the main stream, Usk has

been identified with a Roman station; and though the evidences are

external rather than internal, the theory has been almost universally

accepted of antiquaries. Of its castle, occupying a commanding site

near the river, and still retaining its outer walls in very fair

preservation, with the gateway, towers, and keep, the precise origin

is not known; but in the reign of Henry III. it was in the hands of

Robert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. From this family it passed to the

Mortimers, Earls of March, and in the reign of Henry VI. was granted

to Richard, Duke of York, as nephew of the last of the Mortimers. It

became a favourite residence of this personage, and is believed to have

been the birthplace of Edward IV. and other princes. Of the scathe

which Owen Glendower had wrought at Usk we have already spoken, but

it remains to add that the citizens were at last avenged, for here he

sustained a crashing defeat and had to flee to the mountains.

Flowing beneath the ancient stone bridge shown in our view (page 156),

the river passes on, through scenery that is never less than pleasant,

to Caerleon, prettily placed on the right bank; and here the Usk

takes toll of the Afon. Caerleon is one of the most interesting spots

in all this part of Wales. Here was quartered the second Augustan

legion, and this was the principal Roman town in the country of the

Silures. In those days it must have been a place of great magnificence

and refinement as well as of war, for Giraldus Cambrensis, writing

in the twelfth century, tells of the remains of splendid palaces,

baths, theatres, and other public buildings; and though these have all

vanished, an abundance of Roman relics has been unearthed, which are

treasured in a museum that has been built by an antiquarian society;

and bits of the wall are still to be seen _in situ_. But the legendary

associations of Caerleon are even more memorable than its history; for

here it was, according to one version of the Arthurian myth, that the

British prince, when, after the withdrawal of the legions, the land

was laid waste by the "heathen hosts" and by the warfare of the native

princes--

"Thro' the puissance of his Table Round

Drew all their petty princedoms under him,

Their king and head, and made a realm and reigned."

The Roman amphitheatre consists of a grassy hollow enclosed by a bank,

lying just outside the wall on the east; "Arthur's Round Table" is a

bank of earth some sixteen feet high. There is no reason to doubt that

after the Roman era Caerleon became the centre of one of the British

kingdoms. At a later time it was "threatened by the fleet of Alfred,

which, however, was recalled home before making an attack. In early

days it had its martyrs--St. Julius and St. Aaron--and afterwards it

became the seat of a bishopric, which for some time enjoyed the honour

of being the Metropolitan See of Wales. After the Norman Conquest

Caerleon was a frequent bone of contention between the Welsh and the

invaders, and was alternately taken and retaken. A castle was built

here by one of the Norman barons; but it was not until the reign of

Edward I. that the English obtained undisturbed possession of the town,

which, prior to the building of a castle at Newport, was a place of

considerable strategic importance."[10]

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Dunning, Usk._

USK (_p. 155_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

CAERLEON.]

By this time the Usk has become a tidal stream with a rapidly widening

valley; and now it follows a devious course through rich meadows with

wooded hills on either hand. A tomb in Christchurch, on the road

connecting Caerleon and Newport, was long believed to have miraculous

powers of cure for sick children who touched the sepulchre on the eve

of the Ascension; and in 1770 as many as sixteen children were laid

upon it to pass the night. Newport, four miles from the mouth of the

river, owes its prosperity mainly to the great output of iron and coal

from the interior of Wales that comes here for shipment. It has many

railways to wait upon it, and its facilities in this kind have been

greatly increased by the construction of the Severn Tunnel; and it is

also furnished with abundant dock accommodation. Of the castle, built

by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry I., to command

the Usk, some of the walls and towers still remain, close to the famous

bridge of five arches, reared at the beginning of the century and

widened and improved in 1866; but the greater part of the stronghold

has been either demolished or converted into business premises. The

record of the town is, for the most part, one of peace and commercial

development, and contains few episodes of violence, except the attack

upon it by the Chartists led by John Frost in the year 1839. The tower

of the church of St. Woollos, standing on an eminence overlooking the

valley of the Usk and the Bristol Channel, is said by Wood to have been

built by Henry III. in gratitude to the inhabitants of this place and

surrounding districts, who, by a victory over his enemies, relieved

him from captivity. Newport may not have great attractions to offer to

the tourist, but in these later days it has not been mindful only of

money-making, as one may see from the many public buildings with which

it has provided itself.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

NEWPORT: THE BRIDGE AND CASTLE.]

Leaving Newport, the Usk wanders through a plain of no particular

interest, scenically speaking, and almost at its embouchure is joined

by the river Ebbw, which, rising on the border of Brecknockshire in

two headstreams that unite near Llanhilleth, has run a course some

twenty-four miles long. Thus reinforced, Usk merges itself in the

larger life of the Bristol Channel.

/E. W. Sabel./

[Illustration: THE BRECKNOCK BEACONS, FROM THE TAFF.]

RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES.

Brecknock Beacons--The /Taff/: Taff Fawr and Taff Fechan--Cardiff

Reservoirs--Merthyr--The Dowlais Steel and Iron Works--The

Rhondda--Pontypridd--Castell Coch--Llandaff and its

Cathedral--Cardiff and its Castle. The /Neath/: Ystradfellte--The

Mellte and its Affluents--The Cwm Porth--Waterfalls and

Cascades--The Sychnant--Pont Neath Vaughan--Neath and

its Abbey--The Dulas and the Clydach. Swansea and its

Docks--Morriston Castle--Swansea Castle--The Mumbles and

Swansea Bay. The /Tawe/: Craig-y-Nos--Lly-Fan Fawr. The /Towy/:

Ystradffin--Llandovery--Llandilo--Dynevor Castle--Carmarthen

and Richard Steele--Carmarthen Bar. The /Taf/: Milford

Haven--Carew Castle--Pembroke Castle--Monkton Priory--New Milford

and Old Milford--Haverfordwest. The /Teifi/: Strata Florida

Abbey--Newcastle Emlyn--Cenarth--Cardigan. The /Ystwith/: The Upper

Waters--Aberystwith.

The bold-headed, ruddy Brecknock Beacons and their neighbouring heights

of the Fforest Fawr are, between them, to be held responsible for the

nativity of three important streams of South Wales: the Taff, the

Neath, and the Tawe. Not one of these streams is navigable, and they

all have courses trivial enough compared with the Severn, the Usk,

or the Wye. They are, however, quite strangely remarkable for their

natural beauty, and for the scars on their beauty due to the mineral

wealth of the valleys they drain. Nowhere in Great Britain is there

more fascinating glen scenery or more sequestered and picturesque

waterfalls than on the Neath and its tributaries. Yet Neath itself

is a grimy town, and the river, which, ten miles to the north, wins

admiration from everyone, here flows discoloured amid ironworks and

coal mines, with all their ugly rubbish heaps. The Taff and the Tawe

begin among heather and bracken, loftily and crystal clear; and they

end alike, brown as canals in manufacturing districts, the one among

the shipping of Cardiff, and the other in the blackest and most

forbidding part of Swansea.

[Illustration: LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL: THE WEST FRONT (_p. 164_).]

In all Wales there is no finer little group of mountain-tops than the

Brecknock Beacons, as seen from the south. Pen-y-Fan, the highest

summit, stands 2,910 feet above sea-level, and 500 feet less above

the town of Brecon, some five miles to the north. The Beacons are an

isolated society, separated by the Usk and its valley from the Black

Forest Mountains east, and by the deep Glyn Tarel from the irregular

mountain mass whence Tawe springs to the light. Their bases lie set

among charming pastoral nooks. Above, they are good to see when autumn

has made tawny the acres of their bracken; and at the summits they vie

with each other in the redness of their precipices, that of Pen-y-Fan

rightly winning the day with a sheer slide of rock some 600 feet deep,

at an angle of about 70 degrees.

Many are the legends that animate the Beacons. Enough if we believe

with certain of the bards that it was here, on Pen-y-Fan, that Arthur

called his chivalry together, and initiated the Order of the Knights of

the Round Table. In the land of the Red Dragon, centuries ago, there

could be no higher dignity than to be associated with him who was to

appear for the glory of Britain: "the lamp in darkness":--

"In forest, mountain, and in camp,

Before them moved the Burning Lamp;

In blackest night its quenchless rays

Beckoned them on to glorious days."

[Illustration: _Photo: F. Bedford, by permission of Catherall &

Pritchard, Chester._

LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL: THE NAVE AND CHOIR (_p. 164_).]

Having clambered, not without considerable exertion, to Pen-y-Fan, the

traveller, if he feels thirsty, has but to turn his back to the north,

face the distant smoke clouds above the hills of Merthyr and Rhymney,

and walk a few yards down the western slope of the mountain. Here are

two ice-cold springs, the parents of baby rivulets. Below you see

how briskly these rivulets broaden and unitedly carry the pure water

to the south. This is, in fact, one of the two main sources of the

/Taff/. The other also is on the Beacons. The two streams, Taff

Fawr and Taff Fechan (the "Great" and "Little" Taff), run parallel, in

respective glens, among heather and rocks, for eight or ten miles, to

join just above Merthyr. Pollution of all kinds comes to the stream as

soon as it is thus fully entitled to be called the Taff.

Even before Merthyr is reached, Taff Fawr has learnt something of

the pains and penalties of an industrial district. Ere it has run

five miles from its source, it falls into the hands of the Cardiff

Corporation. Its valley is here a characteristic mountain glen, with

heathery solitudes on either side, and little clefts among the heather

by which nameless affluents bring their pure tribute to the main

stream. Houses there are none. But of a sudden, in all this loneliness,

you come to a huge dam built and building across the valley from east

to west, and beyond you perceive the goodly lake of which the rising

dam is to be the mighty northern boundary.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES.]

Yet farther south are other evidences of Cardiff's great thirst.

Our Taff is again enclosed, and flows through a second reservoir,

proceeding out of it by a series of prepared waterfalls, not

unpicturesque, though they have artificial flagged beds and precise

parapets. Here, however, one may almost look one's last at Taff the

pellucid. The area of toil and sophistication is at hand. Yet some

four miles above Merthyr the river has one notable reach of beauty.

There is a ruined turnpike house to hint of the time of "Rebecca," when

this part of Wales rose in arms and fought toll-bars as ancient Wales

fought the Normans of the Marches; and high above the wrecked house are

some precipitous limestone cliffs, with jackdaws always circling about

their crests. Taff lies in a deep bed here, with woods on the western

slopes where its waters wash them. It rose in the old red sandstone of

the Beacons: it has now come to the carboniferous limestone and to the

coal-measures to which South Wales owes its phenomenal prosperity.

Merthyr would be a pretty place if it were not sullied by smoke beyond

redemption. The hills, studded with chimneys, cumber each other; and

in all the adjacent hollows, high up and low down, are manufactories.

The people wear clogs. As in other such busy centres, they seem happy

enough, and by no means tearful about the local desecration of Nature.

But it must be admitted that they are grimy, like their environment.

Of all the large manufactories round Merthyr, those of the Dowlais

Steel and Iron Works, two miles away (a constant ascent), are the most

considerable. One may doubt, perhaps, if these are now the largest

of their kind in the world, but they are still very extensive. A

recent report tells us that they consist of eighteen blast furnaces,

producing about 700 tons of iron and 2,400 tons of steel rails per

week, and that their collieries can lift 3,700 tons of coal daily.

Founded about a hundred and fifty years ago, they have been a staff

of life to millions. Few sights of the kind are more impressive than

the manipulation here of the huge cruses of molten steel, and the

methodical treatment of the ores, which develop in a few hours into

red-hot steel rails from thirty to sixty yards long; or than the

cutting of these substantial rails into sections by a serrated disc

which makes some 1,600 revolutions a minute.

The "Dowlais Lights," as they are called, flash at times high over the

mountains to the north. The landlord of the little inn at Devynnock

called the writer out at night to see them. "It's a sign of rain, for

certain," he said. Tradition locally lays down this law; but tradition

often errs, and on this occasion the Dowlais lights, seen here twenty

miles away, were, as it chanced, the augurs of a glorious autumnal

morrow.

[Illustration: LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL]

[Illustration: NORTH DOOR]

From Merthyr downwards Taff flows fast, as if anxious to reach the sea

from the uncomely rows of colliers' cottages which rise so thickly

above it. It is still hedged about by mountains, but the mountains

are not now "things of beauty." Quaker's Yard, Aberdare Junction, and

Pontypridd are names of industrial value. At each of these places,

"coal" railways from lateral valleys join the Taff Vale line. With

these tributary railways descend tributaries for the Taff itself, the

river Rhondda (which itself bifurcates higher up into the Rhondda Fawr

and Fechan) being the most noteworthy for the volume of its water. The

scenery of these affluents is, like that of the Taff itself, imposing,

with deep glens and wooded dingles, but mercilessly cut about by

capitalists.

Pontypridd deserves particular mention for the famous bridge which

gives it its name. In the words of a specialist, this bridge "is a

perfect segment of a circle, and stretches its magnificent chord of

140 feet across the bed of the Taff, rising like a rainbow from the

steep bank on the eastern side of the river, and gracefully resting

on the western--the _beau idéal_ of architectural elegance." It is

the supreme achievement of a local stonemason named Edwards, who, a

hundred and fifty years ago, devoted himself to the construction of

bridges much as a mediæval artist devoted himself to the Madonnas of

his canvases or to his crucifixes. South Wales owes much to Edwards the

bridge-builder: we shall meet with his work on the Towy and the Teifi

as well as here. In 1755 this "_beau idéal_ of architectural elegance"

showed to better advantage than now, when it is surrounded by the

common buildings of a mining town; but it was never more useful than at

present.

[Illustration: THE PALACE GATEWAY, LLANDAFF (_p. 166_).]

Hence, now wide in a shallow bed, and now narrow and rushing deeply

between high banks, gaily wooded in places and mere refuse-heaps in

others, Taff speeds towards Llandaff. Three or four miles ere it comes

to this tranquil spot, a striking crag is seen on its left bank, with

glorious beech woods clothing the steep red slopes of the rock. This is

an historic spot: Castell Coch, or the Red Castle. It is such a site as

in Rhineland would at one time have given a robber-baron a superb base

for his depredations. As such, in fact, it was utilised. We read how,

in 1158, Ivor Bach of Castell Coch descended upon Cardiff Castle and

carried off the Earl and Countess of Gloucester as prisoners: the event

is set forth on canvas in the Cardiff Town Hall. Nowadays the turret

that rises above the topmost trees of the crag tells of other exploits.

Castell Coch belongs to the Marquess of Bute, and it is here that

the wine is grown which, in the opinion of some, is convincing proof

that England might, if she would, become a viniferous country. In the

Cardiff Exhibition of 1896 a stall was devoted to the sale of Castell

Coch wines.

But the graceful spire and tower of Llandaff soon appear, in the midst

of green meadows and lofty old trees, to tell of yet other aspirations,

with the myriad houses of expanding Cardiff beyond. Its name describes

it: Llan-ar-Daf, "the church on the Taff." It has been spoken of "as

the most ancient episcopal see remaining on its original site in Great

Britain." The old records go far to acclaim Llandaff as both venerable

and ancient. Lucius, the great-grandson of Caractacus, in the second

century /A.D./, endowed, we are told, four churches from the

royal estates, one being Llandaff. A bishop of Llandaff is also said

to have died a martyr in the Diocletian persecution. And yet, with

such high associations, forty years ago this cathedral was the most

desolate and neglected in the land. As it stands, it is eloquent of

the whole-hearted labours of two men, chiefly: Dean Conybeare and Dean

Williams. Previous to 1857, the cathedral was a picturesque ivied ruin

of Perpendicular tower and Early-English roofless walls, with a ghastly

eighteenth-century conventicle absorbing what is now half the nave and

the east end of the building. The grand old Norman doorways south,

north-east, and west, and also the tower, seemed to have outlived

their vocation; and the Norman arch of the interior, above the present

altar--perhaps the finest thing in Llandaff--was plastered up and

totally expunged. The present cathedral owes its origin to the Norman

bishop Urban (1107-33), who was dissatisfied with the church--28 feet

long, 15 feet broad, and 20 feet high--to the throne of which he had

been raised; and its remarkable restoration to the Llandaff architect,

John Pritchard, of recent times. It can no longer be described as, by

Bishop Bull in 1697, "our sad and miserable cathedral." Alike within

and outside it satisfies by its beauty and good order. The old and the

new are well blended here.

[Illustration: _Photo: Alfred Freke, Cardiff._

CARDIFF CASTLE (_p. 166_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. MARY STREET, CARDIFF.]

As a village, Llandaff is now hardly aught except a flourishing suburb

of Cardiff. Still, it keeps its individuality, and declines to be

incorporated with the great invading town. The remains of the old

episcopal palace and the old market-cross consort amicably with the

one or two single-storeyed thatched cottages of the village square.

The palace gateway has quite a baronial look, but it leads to nothing

of particular interest. Bishopscourt, the modern palace, is a more

cosy residence than that built by Bishop John de la Zouch early in the

fifteenth century, of which this gateway is the most conspicuous relic.

Of Cardiff, what can be said adequately in few words? It began the

century with about a thousand inhabitants; in 1881 its population was

82,671; and now it is about double as much. The Romans had a fort here,

which the Welshmen called Caer Didi, or the fort of Didius (Aldus

Didius): hence, Caerdydd and Cardiff. Fitzhamon the Norman, about 1095,

erected the castle, the substantial fragments of which adorn the grassy

courtyard of the mansion of the Marquess of Bute, who--more than Morgan

ap Rhys, or Fitzhamon, who dispossessed Morgan--may well be called the

lord of Cardiff. The prosperity of the present town began with the

canal and sea-lock, early in this century, which enabled Merthyr to

send its coal abroad; but it was guaranteed by the enterprise of the

father of the actual Marquess of Bute, who expended millions in the

construction of docks. Within the memory of men still living there

was tidal mud close to the stately, if _bizarre_, outer wall of the

Marquess's residence, with its glass-eyed effigies of wild beasts

perched on the stones. But the "Welsh Metropolis," as Cardiff loves to

call itself, will not again see those times.

One cannot conscientiously say that there is much of romantic or even

artistic interest in this thriving town--the castle, with its Asiatic

richness of decoration, apart. But the place is at least interesting,

in its acres of docks, its prodigious machinery for the control of

water-power and for the lading of vessels, and even its long ugly road

of mean houses connecting it with the town of Bute Docks. This last

is a cosmopolitan district. Coal is in demand everywhere, and it is

pre-eminently coal that Cardiff thrives on. In 1849, only 162,829 tons

of it were exported hence; in 1895, the amount was 11,067,403 tons.

One of the astonishing sights of the Docks is to see a railway truck

full of coal lifted by machinery as easily as if it were a penny loaf,

emptied into the hold of a ship, and then, in less than a minute, be

succeeded by another truck.

[Illustration: _Photo: Mr. Francis Bedford, Camden Road, N._

THE DRAWING ROOM, CARDIFF CASTLE.]

Cardiff has every incentive and determination to go ahead. St. Mary's,

the main street, can boast of costly banks and hotels and a very great

deal of traffic. It is singularly noisy at night; and that also, we

presume, is evidence of the strong modern spirit of the place. The

town in 1896 indulged in an Exhibition on such a scale that its loss

may be computed in scores of thousands of pounds; but the Exhibition

was an investment, and it is a proof of Cardiff's wealth that it can

afford thus to cast expectantly so many thousands upon the waters. The

Marquess's castle is as unique in its splendour as is Cardiff among

Welsh towns in its development. Of its external towers, one, the Clock

Tower (with many quaint, arrangements for spectacular effect), is as

modern as the residential part of the building. The other, or Black

Tower (though it is of white limestone), dates from early times. It is

also known as the Duke Robert Tower, because it was here that Robert

Duke of Normandy was, by his own brother, Robert of Gloucester, son of

Henry I., confined for many years.

[Illustration: IN THE VALE OF NEATH.]

Taff has much to be proud of as it glides into the sea past the castle,

though it has, for miles and miles ere this, lost its crystal purity.

* * * * *

The river /Neath/, like Taff, rises among lonely mountains,

heather, bracken, and the bracing winds of the uplands. The three

summits of the Fforest Fawr range--long-backed ridges, woeful to be

lost upon--each give names to the tributaries that flow from them,

and at Pont Neath Vaughan form the Neath river proper. Y-Fan-Nedd,

Y-Fan-Llia, and Y-Fan-Dringarth thus beget the Little Neath (the "dd"

in Welsh being equivalent to our "th"), the Llia, and the Dringarth.

The two latter, after about five miles of independence, join just above

Ystradfellte, where another Castell Coch reminds us that Wales had long

ages of intestine and other strife ere she gave up unfurling the Red

Dragon on her hilltops. We are here in the "fiery heart of Cambria,"

where the rocks and morasses were such mighty fastnesses for the brave

Welshmen of old. But these times are long past, and Cambria's fiery

heart may now be said to depend literally upon the fuel in the bowels

of the land.

[Illustration: NEATH ABBEY (_p. 171_).]

There is little of exceptional interest in the upper reaches of the

Neath's tributaries. Maen Llia, or the Stone of Llia, is a huge boulder

of granite some eleven feet high by the Roman road of Sarn Helen,

which, far up near the source of the Llia, crosses the mountains with

the recognised audacity of a Roman thoroughfare. But few are the

wayfarers, other than reckless tramps, who set eyes on this one among

the many monoliths that decorate Wild Wales. It is at Ystradfellte

that the wonders of the Neath's scenery begin. This little village

stands more than 900 feet above the sea-level, and the Mellte (as Llia

and Dringarth conjoined are named), in its fall of nearly 500 feet

in the five miles between Ystradfellte and Pont Neath Vaughan, is a

succession of pictures so lovely, and yet so confined, that they excite

as much admiration as despair in the mind of the artist who comes to

paint them. The Little Neath runs parallel with the Mellte during

this course, separated from it by a high ridge, and scarcely a mile

apart. This stream also gallops in a rocky bed, with soaring woods on

both banks, and with waterfalls here and there of much beauty. But

the Mellte and its two affluents, the Hepste and the Sychnant, quite

put the Little Neath in the shade in this respect. You may see it for

yourself, and also judge by the opinions expressed without reserve by

the many colliers and their families who come hither, on picnic bent,

from Hirwain and even Merthyr, over the high eastern hills. The Vale

of Neath would be accounted a wonder if it were in Middlesex. But its

remoteness keeps metropolitan tourists aloof; its charms are for the

local colliers, and few besides.

The Cwm Porth, or "river cavern," a mile below Ystradfellte, is the

first of the Mellte's marked eccentricities. The combination of rocks

and water and wood, with the added element of danger in exploring this

rugged, echo-haunted perforation in the cliff, are attractive in the

extreme to the able-bodied traveller. Mellte, in time of flood, carries

a deal of amber-tinted water in its rocky bed, and Cwm Porth is not

in the hands of a company who charge for admittance, and guarantee

smoothed paths, and ropes and handrails where there is a risk of broken

limbs. This, indeed, is just the best of the Mellte: you feel as if you

are on virgin soil while scrambling at a venture in its steep woods,

now on the edge of the roaring little stream fifty feet sheer above

a waterfall, and now midway in the river itself, perched on a rock,

with vistas of boisterous water up and down, and the river's banks,

wooded to the sky-line, hundreds of feet on either hand, at an angle

of forty-five or fifty degrees. The writer, on one memorable September

afternoon, was for hours alone in these woods, passing from waterfall

to waterfall, more by instinct than sure guidance, with the gold and

bronze and crimson of foliage constantly betwixt him and the blue

autumnal sky; nor did he see sign of other human being than himself,

nor more than one white farmstead, when he climbed above the topmost

trees and returned to the bleak and bare uplands beyond. The squirrels

ran from bough to bough, the birds chirped in the infrequent grassy

glades, where the sunlight made a bright spot in the midst of this

dense, damp shade, and the waters filled the glen with their clamour.

In all England there is nothing of its kind so admirable as the

seclusion and beauty of this gorge of the Mellte, with its tributary,

the Hepste, to the east.

Categorically, the chief waterfalls may be mentioned thus: the Clun

Gwyn Falls--Upper, Middle, and Lower--and the two Falls of the

Hepste. One cannot describe such things; each of these five has such

individuality and beauty that on seeing it you prefer it to the others.

Their framing is perfect. Even the heron that gathers up its long legs

and whips across the stream out of your way is not wanted to complete

your satisfaction in such pictures. Yet in a three miles' flight a crow

would reach coal mines and swart heaps of such refuse as you would not

dream could lie within scores of miles of these divine solitudes.

The great Cilhepste Fall, otherwise Ysgwd-yr-Eira (the Spout of Snow),

though the best known of the valley's cascades, is, in the writer's

opinion, the least convincing. The water is tossed in one curve over a

ledge of rock, and falls about 45 feet into a basin, whence it moves

downwards to the far finer succession of furious white steps known as

the Lower Hepste Falls. The woods in autumn clasp it amphitheatrically

with their green and gold. There is no fault anywhere. There is also

this added eccentricity: you may walk under the Fall from one side of

the river to the other. The writer did it in time of heavy flood, and

was soaked for his pains. Afterwards he clambered, not easily, down to

the Lower Falls, the disarray of which was much more to his taste. The

Ysgwd-yr-Eira would please more if it had a flaw. As it is, it looks

as if Nature and man had conspired to make a cascade with surroundings

that should be a model of their kind. Yet even this criticism--which

may well be held to be of the bilious order--will by most be regarded

as highly flattering to the Spout of Snow.

After the Mellte, one is not profoundly stirred by the Falls and sylvan

graces of the Little Neath and its tributary, the Perddyn. Yet, they,

too, are beautiful, especially the cascades of Scwd Gwladys (the Lady's

Fall) and Scwd Einon Gam (Crooked Einon's Fall), in the latter stream.

The Sychnant, however, is a sensational little river. It joins the

Mellte at the foot of a rocky precipice, Craig Dinas, which, even with

its mere 170 feet of perpendicular rock, may be warranted to yield a

thrill. From the grassy, hawthorned summit of Craig Dinas, one may

peer into the deep-cut bed of the Sychnant, where this cleaves through

the mountains from Hirwain, and also see its brace of waterfalls. But

the glen is well-nigh impassably dense with undergrowth and trees,

and bound about with precipices as emphatic, though not as high, as

Craig Dinas. Where the Sychnant comes to the light from this dark

embedded dingle, it is sadly spoiled by quarry men and others. But even

these enterprising gentlemen will fight shy of its higher recesses,

especially as they have nothing to gain by the intrusion.

Point Neath Vaughan is a snug little village, with none of the airs it

might assume in pride of its position as key to the glories of these

glens of the Neath. Its inns are homely, modest buildings. South, for

the ten or twelve miles to the sea, the river Neath flows through a

broad and lovely valley, with wooded or bare mountains on both sides.

From Cefn Hirfynydd (west) and Craig-y-Llyn (east) many a dashing

little stream, with miniature cascades, makes great haste to swell the

main river. But collieries are here, as well as fascinating scenery,

and it is impossible to overlook them and their smoke.

The town of Neath neither gives to nor gains from its river much

distinction where this moves through its midst, brown, and with tidal

mud on its banks. It is a colliery town, pure and simple, surprisingly

furnished with public-houses. The fragments of its castle that survive

are pent about by dismal slums, so that a man must have a very keen

antiquarian sense to discover them. Nor are they much when found: just

a gateway with its towers, the whole prettily hugged by ivy. Richard

Grenville, of Bideford, who founded it in the twelfth century, would

not care to see it now.

Hence to the much more grandiose ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of

St. Mary and the Holy Trinity, which also owed its origin to the

same Richard Grenville, is a walk of a mile or more--not a rural

walk, by any means. You may, if you will, take a tram-car thither,

with collier-lads or their womenfolk for your companions, and with

black mud on the roadway. The ruins stand close-girt by canals and

mines and ironworks. Leland describes the abbey as, in his day, the

fairest in Wales; and in the year 1500 its glories, and especially the

sweetness of its convent bells, were bardic themes. Never was there

so abject a change; and yet, after the Dissolution, when it fell to

the lot of Sir Richard Cromwell, nephew of Henry VIII.'s minister and

great-grandfather of Oliver, it was for long an appreciated residence.

The white stone mullions of the many windows of the parts of the abbey

added by Sir P. Hoby, in 1650 or so, still gleam against the dark

gritstone of the walls.

[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF NEATH.]

In spite of its sordid surroundings, however, Neath Abbey is not

despicable. The area of its ruins impresses; the jagged towering ends

of the ivied walls of its church, with daws croaking about them, and

the long-desolate aisle, tangled with coarse grass and brambles, are

also impressive. The ecclesiastics who sleep in Neath Abbey may be said

to lie fathoms deep under the accumulated soil. Not a trace of one of

them remains above the surface. The dark refectory of their convent,

with its pillared roof, stands pretty much as it did in the sixteenth

century, and of itself would dignify the ruins. But echo alone feasts

in its damp, sombre hall. One remembers that it was here our Edward

II. sought shelter after his evasion of Caerphilly Castle, and that

it was a Neath monk who betrayed him into that terrible custody of

Berkeley Castle, where death awaited him; and, remembering this, one

is inclined to be sentimental, and to talk about the curse that broods

over the Neath Abbey ruins. In truth, however, smoke is the main

brooder here.

[Illustration: NORTH DOCK, SWANSEA (_p. 174_).]

The river Neath glides on to its estuary by Briton Ferry, some two

miles distant from the town. Hills escort it right to the sea--not all

with smoking chimneys on them. The town is indeed quite uniquely hemmed

round with beauty, as well as ugliness. Up the valleys of the Dulas

and the Clydach, slim streams which join the Neath near its mouth, are

nooks and recesses as winsome as those of the Mellte itself; and once

on the tops of the mountains, in any direction, the pedestrian may

readily forget coal and iron.

* * * * *

It is but seven or eight, miles from Neath to Swansea, where the

/Tawe/ comes to its end, foully enough, amid ironworks and

"coalers." One may, for convenience sake, make the journey, and later

rise with the river to its source. There is more satisfaction in seeing

it gradually purify than in watching its progress from pellucidity to

pollution; from the sweet-aired heather hills where Adelina Patti has

fixed her quiet home, to the sulphureous atmosphere of Landore and

Hafod.

Sweyn's Ea (Sweyne's Eye or Inlet), Aber Tawe--or Swansea, as we

modern English call it--is not what it was when Sweyne the King and

Rover was wont to come hither as a base for his forays into the vales

of South Cambria. Still, it can, if it cares to, brag stoutly of its

ancient enlistment in the service of carbon. In 1305 it received a

charter from William de Brews (Breos), great-grandson of the famous

Lord Marcher, "to have pit coal." That was beginning an industrial

career early indeed. Four centuries later, in 1709, its jurisdiction as

a port extended from Oxwich, in the Gower peninsula, to Chepstow--of

course, including the then unborn and unthought--of Cardiff. It began

to smelt copper in 1564, thanks to a charter given by Queen Elizabeth;

and it is to copper and shipping, quite as much as to its position at

the mouth of a great coalfield (estimated still to hold 19,200,000,000

tons of fuel underground), that Swansea owes its fine fortunes and its

population of about a hundred thousand.

It seems an ungracious thing to say, but Swansea is apparently somewhat

hampered by its antiquity. In the struggle for supremacy with Cardiff,

it has not had Cardiff's free hand in the matter of laying out a new

town; nor, one may add, quite that powerful vigour of youth which

carries all before it. Hence, it has already been left behind. The Duke

of Beaufort is not such a potentate in Swansea as the Marquess of Bute

in Cardiff; yet he stands to this city somewhat like the Marquess to

Cardiff. It was a Duke of Beaufort who cut the first sod of the North

Dock, or Town-Float, in 1852; and his Grace has large representation

in the Swansea Harbour Trust, which has charge of the city's port

affairs. The late Lord Swansea, speaking on behalf of this Corporation,

once said: "Swansea, you may depend upon it, is destined to become

the Ocean Port of England." Cardiff, at any rate, laughs such words

to scorn, and even a layman of England may be allowed to think the

prophecy over-sanguine. The North Dock has an area of 14 acres, and is

"connected with a half-tide basin of two and a half acres by a lock 160

feet long and 50 feet wide, having at its seaward entrance gates of 60

feet, with a depth of 23 feet over the sill at spring-tides and 16 feet

at neaps." This is, of course, but one of Swansea's docks, and by no

means the most important of them. Cardiff's docks are undoubtedly finer

than Swansea's, with more gigantic fitments.

Swansea, though ancient, possesses few relics of its past. The castle

tower, in the main street, with a clock set in it, is the chief of

them. In the large hall of the Royal Institution of South Wales--one

of Swansea's many meritorious establishments--may be seen divers

drawings and engravings of the city one, two, and three centuries

ago. In all of them the castle towers stand up as if they still had

the feudal faith strong in them. Green, pleasant, wooded hills form

the invariable background. How changed the landscape now! The green

hills are gone; cut bare and covered with mean mechanic tenements or

smoking manufactories. On the summit of the most conspicuous of them

are a few gaunt walls, which by night may, with the help of a glamorous

moon, come near being deceptively picturesque. This is the so-called

Morriston Castle, three miles north of the city, yet with the black

suburb of Morriston at its feet, an active contributant to Swansea's

fortunes. The "castle's" history is brief and ignominious. A hundred

years ago Sir John Morris, a maker of tin plates, who gives his name to

the suburb, erected a lofty and large building on this breezy hilltop,

for the accommodation of four-and-twenty of his workmen and their

families. Healthier homes these could not then have had within easy

reach of their daily labour. But the gradient of the hill soon wore out

their enthusiasm, and, one by one, the families moved down on to the

level. Then the lodging-house, being abandoned, fell slowly but surely

into ruin. The ruin is now Morriston Castle.

Swansea's castle has a more conventional history. It was built in its

final form (which can only be conjectured from its remains) by Bishop

Gower of St. David's, in the fourteenth century. After the usual

vicissitudes of disestablished castles, it still, until 1858, offered

its dungeons for the confinement of recalcitrant debtors. In that year

even these privileges were taken from it, and, ever since, civilisation

has tried to crowd it out of existence. Its body is lost in the various

buildings and workshops that have encroached upon it, but the graceful

arcaded clock-tower remains. It gives a pretty touch to Swansea's main

street, which it commands.

Little more can here be said about Swansea, except that the visitor

owes it to himself to leave the city (which was made a suffragan

bishopric in 1890) as soon as possible, and make friends with the

Mumbles. The five-mile curve of bay thither has been compared to that

of the Bay of Naples. The comparison is not a modest one. Nevertheless,

there is something uncommonly exhilarating about this Swansea Bay,

with the red and white green-topped cliffs of the Mumbles at its

south-western horn. You soon get out of reach of the fumes of the

city's copper and other metal works. The shipping of the Mumbles has

a nice clean look after that at the mouth of the Tawe. And, save when

the wind is north-east, the air is sweet here, as it is bound to be.

Mumbles--or Oystermouth, as it used to be called--has an attractive old

castle of its own, of the Decorated period. But it is precious chiefly

to Swansea for its sea and the lighthouse islets at the extremity of

the headland. The view hence towards the busy city, less than four

miles across the water, is not gay. Tall chimneys and a dense canopy of

smoke: such is the Erebus you behold from the pleasant Mumbles cliffs.

Ere moving up Tawe's valley, it seems quite worth while to tell of

Swansea's connection with the fortunes of John Murray, the publisher.

Gower the poet, Beau Nash, and other celebrities, owed their birth

to this city; and it was while living here in 1806 that one Mrs.

Randell compiled the "Domestic Cookery," for which John Murray paid

her the solid sum of £2,000, and which, Dr. Smiles tells us, was very

profitable to the young publisher, and helped in a great measure to

establish his position. It may be added, also, that in the parish

churchyard at the Mumbles lies the Dr. Thomas Bowdler who busied

himself so strenuously with Shakespeare's Plays, and gave to our

dictionaries an awkward, ugly word.

The Tawe cannot be much more than twenty-five miles in length, from

its source in the lakelet on the Brecknock Van, or summit, of the

Fforest Fawr Mountains, to the Swansea Docks. As fully half its course

is through a colliery district, it may be supposed that its claims to

beauty cannot be of the strongest. But the Neath river has taught us

that these South Wales streams cannot be judged thus summarily. One

must, therefore, proceed up the long valley of Tawe in the hope of

charms other than those that emanate from pit-gear, long chimneys, and

factories.

[Illustration: MORRISTON.]

Morriston has already been noticed for its "castle." It deserves a

word also for its bridge over the river. This bears the look of one of

Edwards's constructions; its eyelet holes and graceful single curve

remind one of Pontypridd. From Morriston to Ystradgynlais, Tawe is

continually trammelled. In one part there is a cañon of slag heaps half

a mile long for it to descend through. It is here shallow, and not more

tainted than you would expect. The hills rise in high long banks on the

outer boundaries of the valley, with wooded reaches above the lofty

collieries, and crowned by the naked rock. Just south of Ystradgynlais

the river receives its chief affluent, the Twrch, which has as bright

and lengthy a youth as Tawe itself, rising under the Carmarthen Van,

the rival peak of this Fforest Fawr range, which makes so commanding a

mark on the two counties of Brecknock and Carmarthen.

[Illustration: SWANSEA CASTLE (_p. 174_).]

[Illustration: THE MUMBLES (_p. 175_).]

The ascent here begins to be steep, and it is constant to the source.

The colliery villages become less and less assertive, and the woods

greener. By Coelbren a little stream hurries to the Tawe through one

of those deep, thickly-treed glens which the Neath river knows so

well. It is an enchanting spot, with the blue and green and russet of

Craig-y-Nos across the valley to the north-west. The river gets quite

near to the palace of our sweetest singer, whose conservatories can

be seen gleaming for miles. In South Wales Patti holds a court other

than that assured to her in all the world's capitals. She is at home

here. Her photographs are in the shop-windows of Neath and Swansea, and

so are the photographs of the various luxurious rooms of her mountain

palace; and she is praised for other virtues than those that proceed

from her entrancing throat. People wonder how she can isolate herself

here, where collieries are not so remote that they cannot be seen. But

that is Adelina Patti's affair, and has nothing to do with us. She is

queen of the Tawe valley, in one sense, as well as the world's queen

regnant of melody. At Craig-y-Nos, which is 700 feet above sea-level,

Tawe is distant only five or six mountainous miles from its origin. It

begins, like the Taff, with numerous slender rills from red cuttings

in the stony sides of the bleak uplands, all hurrying together, as if

anxious to compose a little strength with their divided weakness. But

its chief source is the lonely tarn (to borrow the North-country word)

of Lly-Fan Fawr, which never fails to keep it active. This is on the

Brecknock Van. On the Carmarthen Van also there is a lake, Lly-Fan

Fach, some two miles from the source of Tawe. From Lly-Fan Fach comes

the Sawddy, one of the Towy's band of tributaries, which enters that

river at Llangadock.

* * * * *

The /Towy/, which now claims our notice, in a far nobler river

than the others treated in this chapter. From its start in the desolate

wet uplands of Cardiganshire (less trodden than any other part of Great

Britain) to the long channel south of Carmarthen, where it enters the

bay of that name, it knows nothing of such pollution as spoils Tawe,

Taff, and Neath. It is rural from first to last: savage almost in its

upper reaches, beyond Ystradffin, where it can be explored only at

some not inconsiderable risks, and where its first company of eager

affluents rush to it from all sides in glens and defiles, as deep,

craggy, and yet beautiful, as its own. Of its early affluents, the

Doethiau certainly deserves particular mention. Hard by its junction

with Towy is a strikingly picturesque wooded hill, one of Wales's many

Dinases.

Ystradffin is scarcely a village, but it boasts of attachment to the

memory of a seventeenth-century cattle-raider named Twm Shon Catti

(otherwise Tom Jones, the son of Catherine), who made use of a cave

in the side of the Dinas by Towy for purposes of concealment. This

hero of tradition at length determined to mend his ways, and, we are

told, set about it by wooing an heiress. He secured her hand in the

literal sense, and vowed to cut it off unless she gave it to him in the

matrimonial sense. So stern a courtship was irresistible. Afterwards

Twm Shon Catti became respectable, and died holding high office in the

county. But the cave over Towy keeps the memory of his naughty youth

and early manhood still green.

From Ystradffin the river descends circuitously some eleven miles to

the well-known fishing and tourist townlet of Llandovery, gambolling

gaily in its rocky pools as if resolved to make the most of its youth

ere coming to the long green valley which extends from Llandovery to

Carmarthen. Here it receives two voluminous aids in the Bran from the

north-east, and the Gwedderig from the east, both yielding pleasant

prospects even for the few miles their valleys are visible from

Llanymddyfri (_i.e._ "the Church amid the Waters"), or, as we know it,

Llandovery.

Green hills embrace Llandovery as if they loved it. The little town

is not so interesting as its situation, apart from its old inn, the

"Castle," a mellow, time-worn house. The very rooms here in which you

sup on eggs and bacon (if you are lucky enough) may have known that

worthy, the Vicar of Llandingat, who, in the seventeenth century, daily

came hither for his ale, attended by a goat as thirsty as himself.

One day, it is said, this goat drank well rather than wisely, and

thenceforward declined to cross the threshold of the "Castle" with its

master. One may hope that the Vicar learnt a lesson from the goat.

Towy is here a great, clear, rapid stream, and so it continues for

the remaining thirty miles of its career. Famous view-points on it

are the bridges of Llandovery, Llangadock, and Llandilo, the bridges

themselves as graceful as the valley. Llandilo stands on a knoll on the

west bank of the river, and rejoices in its superiority to Llandovery

as a market-town. This, to the stranger, is much less commendatory

than its nearness to one of the most beautiful seats in South Wales,

Dynevor, where the Barons of that title have long held sway. The ruins

of the old Dynevor Castle, on a hill crowded with oak, ash, and beech

trees, are from the river quite ideally picturesque. It is a pity that

the "common herd" of tourists have so misbehaved themselves that Lord

Dynevor has felt compelled to deny free access to so charming a spot.

Golden Grove, an estate as winsome as its name, on the other bank of

the Towy, opposite Dynevor, has had its attractions sung by Dyer, the

poet, who was born in the neighbourhood, and died rector of Coningsby,

in Lincolnshire, in 1757: here is the Grongar Hill, where "often, by

the murm'ring rill," one "hears the thrush while all is still."

Between Llandilo (Llan-Teilo: the Church of St. Teilo, who died Bishop

of Llandaff, in /A.D./ 540) and Carmarthen, Towy's zigzags are

many and eccentric. After Dynevor another castle, that of Dryslwyn, is

soon passed. It is a mere ruin on a green hill. The Nelson Monument,

high in the distance, on the south side of the river, is a more

assertive feature in the landscape, though less welcome. Midway towards

Carmarthen, we cross the Cothi, the longest of all Towy's affluents,

and here, near its mouth, as great a stream as the Towy at Llandovery.

Looking up it, there is even here some suggestion of its fine upper

gorges. At Abergorlech, some ten miles nearer its sources, either

artist or angler would find reason to rejoice in it, while higher still

it absorbs streamlets right and left as greedily as the Towy itself.

One must, however, resist the temptation to loiter on Cothi's bridge by

Llanegwad. There is nothing of especial mark to see by the way, save

Merlin's grotto, where the Arthurian wizard fell a victim to the wiles

of the fairy Viviana, and where he is still imprisoned, and will be for

all time. But you must carry a fine faith with you to be fitly moved by

the legend, and it will not be inexcusable if you fail to find it.

At the Ivy Bush Hotel of Carmarthen, whence there is a commanding

view over the lower part of the valley, one may think tenderly of Sir

Richard Steele, who once lived in it. The tablet to his memory in

the parish church of St. Peter here describes him as the "first chief

promoter of the periodical press of England." What would he say to the

growth of the babe for which he is thus made responsible?

[Illustration: CAREW CASTLE (_p. 182_).]

This capital town, which in the time of Giraldus had walls of burnt

brick, is nowadays of the modernest. Its castle, or what was left of

it, has been turned into a jail; though you may discern some of its

ancient stonework in the adjacent alleys. The town stands well above

the river and the seven-arched bridge beneath which Towy now moves with

stately ease towards the sea, a navigable stream. There is a small

quay here, and a larger one some three miles farther down, for local

coasters. For five miles more Towy holds its own against the ocean; and

yet another five have to be passed ere, at Carmarthen Bar, the fresh

waters gathered from the peaceful and fertile vales of Carmarthenshire

are wholly merged in the salt sea.

* * * * *

We have now come to a singular district of Wales--a part of South Wales

that is not Wales, but "a little England in Wales." Close by Towy's

mouth, another river Taf (though with only one "f") enters the sea very

broadly with the body of water yielded to it by the rivers Dewi Fawr,

Gynin, Feni, and Marias, which all have bright tortuous courses among

the green hills of Pembrokeshire. And four or five miles still farther

west, the "Llans" and "Abers" which proclaim the land of the Cymry end,

and give place to names Danish, Norwegian, and Norman. This continues

until we are at Newgale Bridge, on St. Bride's Bay, eight miles from

the thoroughly reverend and Welsh city of St. David's. Newgale Bridge

has a small ale-house adjacent, where they seem contemptuously ignorant

of the existence of the Welsh counties of Carmarthen and Glamorganshire

to the east, so positively do they inform you that on one side of the

streamlet spanned by the bridge it is England, and on the other side

Wales.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

CARMARTHEN QUAY (_p. 180_).]

The Normans could not, in spite of their sternest efforts, make much

impression on Wales as a whole for a century or two after the battle

of Senlac. But they could, thanks to Milford Haven, nibble at its

south-western extremity. This is what they did, and with the planting

here by Henry I. of a large colony of Flemings the earlier stock seems

to have been either absorbed or superseded.

Milford Haven, with its arms of tidal water extending twenty miles into

the heart of the country, was a grand aid to conquest in these parts.

The Norman lords who were invited hither to carve out careers for

themselves had much success. They raised castles at the extremities of

Milford's water-ways, and thus assured to themselves broad controlling

powers. Enough if mention be made of only the important fortresses of

Pembroke, Haverfordwest, and Carew.

The last of these may be first visited. Its situation at the head of

a dammed tidal inlet, low-lying and with no prominent hills near, is

unworthy of so noble a ruin. But Gerald de Windsor, the Norman lord

who built it (having received the land as a dowry with his Welsh wife,

Nesta, daughter of Prince Rhys ap Tewdwr of Dinefawr, or Dynevor),

probably cared little for the picturesque. The strong western towers

still bear witness to him; but to the mere tourist by far the most

interesting part of the castle is the east side, over against the

water, with its high wall and the lofty great, flaunting skeletons of

the windows of the palace above, their white mullions bowing forward

with inimitable grace. Unfortunately, one cannot romance about the

rooms to which these majestic oriels and bays belonged. This part of

the castle is of the sixteenth century, and was left unfinished.

Carew Castle (Caerau = fortified camps) still belongs to the Carews.

The Windsors took the name of this possession of theirs, and held the

castle for more than three hundred years. Then their line of lordship

was interrupted; and it was during this period that the great Sir Rhys

ap Thomas (whom Henry VII. made a Knight of the Garter for the part he

played before and at Bosworth Field in aid of the House of Tudor) held

such revels here as have made Carew almost a by-word. Among other shows

was a "feate of arms" of five days' duration, to which knights flocked

from all parts of England and Wales. These guests filled the castle and

more: five hundred, "moste of them of goode ranke," were accommodated

with tents in the park adjacent, of which no trace remains. Sir Rhys

himself, in gilt armour, on a "goodlie steede," attended by two pages

on horseback and a herald, "was the judge of the jousts." This same

mighty noble received Henry VII. at Carew before Bosworth Field was

fought; and, if tradition speak true, with his own hands killed Richard

of Gloucester, who would dearly have liked ere then to have killed him.

Sir Rhys lies in the parish church of Carmarthen, with about seven feet

of armoured stone for a monument; and a very small effigy of a wife

lies by his side. With the Civil Wars came the castle's destruction.

The Carews of Crowcombe, in Somersetshire, are now lords of the castle,

and anyone may tread its grass and broken stones on payment of a

threepenny bit.

Carew had the honour of entertaining Henry VII., but Pembroke had the

higher honour of being his birthplace, Margaret Beaufort, his mother,

being then only in her fifteenth year. Five months later he was an

orphan, and Jasper Tudor, his uncle, began his long, exemplary, and

singularly fortunate guardianship. Ere then this great castle, at the

tip of the most southerly of Milford Haven's arms, had had nearly four

centuries of existence. The first castle was only "a slender fortress

with stakes and turf," says Giraldus the chronicler. If so, however,

it must soon have been ousted by the existing Norman keep, which, with

its 70 feet of height and 17 feet of thickness at the base, is anything

rather than "a slender fortress." Throughout England there is no better

specimen left to us of a feudal keep than this of Pembroke.

The castle buildings, as a whole, measure some 500 feet by 400 feet

within the walls; and, viewed, from the breezy summit of the keep

(reached by broken steps and a rope), are, even in their ruin, a very

instructive lesson in feudal history. The gate-house and the keep are

by far the best preserved parts; these are both little less serviceable

than they were in their prime. The central space, or Outer Ward, is now

a grass-plot, kept trim for tennis.

One cannot do more than touch on the conventional last scene in this

castle's active history. The building was held for Charles I. by

Colonel Laugharne and two other Royalists named Powell and Poyer. As

was to be expected, they made a stout resistance even to Cromwell, who

came hither in person. Eventually, however, supplies were cut off,

and the castle surrendered. "The three leaders were condemned to be

shot--though the sentence was reduced to one. Lots were drawn, it is

said, by a little girl. Two were marked 'Life given by God,' the third

was blank, and fell to Poyer, who was shot in Covent Garden, 1649."

Since then Pembroke Castle has accepted its _rôle_ as a ruin. The very

peacocks that strut about its courtyard seem to understand that their

haunt is a superb one.

There is little else in Pembroke save two of those pleasant white

church-towers which are quite a characteristic, of the shire. Monkton

Priory, one of these, has as lengthy a history as the castle. It was

founded in 1098, and belonged to a community of Benedictines connected

with Jayes in Normandy. Anciently this church, which has a very long

back, with the tower about midway in it, was divided by an inner wall

between the monks of the priory and the local parishioners. Its Norman

nave and Decorated choir are well preserved: indeed, the original

builders were as generous of material as they who raised the castle

keep. Externally, save for its tower (restored in 1804), and a Norman

south doorway, it has a very modern aspect, though its acre or two of

gravestones in the churchyard bear witness against appearances.

There are two Pembrokes and two Milfords on Milford Haven; in each

case one old and the other new. Our New Pembroke, however, goes by the

name of Pater or Pembroke Dock, and a very important little town it is

for the United Kingdom, with its building slips, dry dock, and naval

stores. If you chance to be going from Old Pembroke to Pater between

two and three o'clock any Saturday afternoon, you will be tempted to

form an exaggerated idea of the number of hands employed at this State

dockyard. In fact, there are about 1,000, though, of course, the figure

is a variable one. From Pater the view down the Haven is uninterrupted

as far as the watering-place of Dale, eight or nine miles due west,

just at the north corner of the entrance. The channel is there nearly

two miles in breadth, and fortifications on the small island of Thorn,

to the south of Dale, are designed to prevent undesirable interference

with British property in the Haven's recesses.

[Illustration: PEMBROKE CASTLE AND MONKTON PRIORY (_p. 183_).]

[Illustration: THE ROYAL DOCKYARD, PEMBROKE DOCK.]

In less than five minutes you may cross the Haven, by steam ferry, from

Pembroke Dock to New Milford or Neyland, which calls for no particular

notice. It is a creation of the Great Western Railway, in connection

with which steamers ply nightly to Ireland. Hence to Old Milford is a

pleasant walk of three miles, with the water continuously to the left.

The low green hills of the Haven to the south are not very beautiful,

and it is only on exceptional occasions that the great water-way holds

more than half a dozen big ships in its midst. One or two ironclads on

guard may, however, at all times be looked for. Imogen, in _Cymbeline_,

inquires, as a significant aside--

"by the way,

Tell me how Wales is made so happy as

To inherit such a haven!"

[Illustration: HAVERFORDWEST (_p. 186_).]

But Wales's happiness in this possession is of the kind that depends

more on the expectation of favours to come than on benefits actually

enjoyed. Milford Haven was better appreciated in the Middle Ages than

it is now. It was only natural, for example, that Henry Tudor should

land here in his quest of the English crown. Here too, earlier still,

Richard II. set foot, on his anxious return from Ireland, when Henry

of Bolingbroke was troubling his realm. The French chronicler, De la

Marque, who was at Milford at this time, finds much to praise in the

conduct of the Welshmen who were with the unhappy king. Richard's

English retinue deserted him and plundered his baggage, but the Welsh

could with difficulty be dissuaded from accompanying him in his march

north to Conway, and they fell upon such of the deserters as they

could. "What a spirit! God reward them for it!" says De la Marque.

Old Milford is a prettily situated town terraced above the Haven, with

quays and embankments on its shore-line, ready for the traffic that is

still withheld from it. Master Atkins's red coat helps to enliven it.

The blue water, the green level ridges that run west to the sea, and

the Atlantic itself in the distance, all prepossess in its favour. But

Liverpool and Holyhead both hold it aloof from the fortune it aspired

to.

Before proceeding north to that little known yet seductive river, the

Teifi, Haverfordwest, on one of the two Cleddaus, which enter the

Haven at its northern and westernmost arms, must be briefly mentioned.

It is an ancient town, as its castle--built about 1112 by the father

of Richard Strongbow, that eminent castle-builder--testifies. Among

its other privileges was that of being county and capital town in

one; also of having its own lord-lieutenant. Here the Flemings of the

twelfth century most did congregate in this peninsula, and no doubt the

little town's prosperity was largely due to them. Nowadays, however,

it is a waning place, in spite of its lively look and, considering

its remoteness, its fine buildings. This is proven by the number of

its Maiden Assizes in the later years of its independence, before

its annexation to Carmarthen for judicial purposes, as well as by

other less agreeable tokens. It is, perhaps, the most hilly town in

the kingdom. Ere you are half a mile away from it on the road to St.

David's, it is lost to sight; while, approaching it from Milford, its

situation seems quite Alpine.

* * * * *

The /Teifi/ (or Tivy), like the Towy, is little known to

Englishmen other than anglers; and again, like the Towy, it well

deserves knowing. The two rivers both rise among the heather-clad

moors of Cardiganshire; so near, indeed, that you may stand on the

watershed and mark the different trend of their streams. Teifi's chief

supply, however, comes from the Teifi pools, three miles from Strata

Florida Abbey, a congeries of mountain lakes, the abode of interesting

and capricious trout that may be recommended to the traveller with

a fishing rod--and a mackintosh. It has as wild an origin as any of

the rivers of South Wales. The Cistercians of Strata Florida probably

fished these lakes far more than do the moderns.