Chapter III: From Tewkesbury to the Sea (2)

"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.

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.

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./

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.

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.'"

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]

USK (_p. 155_).]

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.

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./

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

CARDIFF CASTLE (_p. 166_).]

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.

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.

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.

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.