We leave Shrewsbury by the Welsh bridge for a week among the rugged hills and valleys of Southern Wales, a country rich in relics of antiquity and romantic associations. We sweep along the fine highway to Welshpool and from thence, a little farther, to Montgomery, a decayed, out-of-the-way town in the hills. A fragment of its castle is perched high on the precipitous hill commanding the town and looking far over the vale of the serpentine Severn. The Severn, like the Wye, is the most sinuous of rivers, and there are few more inspiring prospects than its long shining folds winding through the verdant valley as seen from the castle walls. Montgomery, quiet and unheroic as it is today, has a stirring past. It took its name from Roger de Montgomerie, “Second in command in the army of his kinsman, William of Normandy,” though the grim, almost inaccessible castle antedated his possession of the town. Fierce indeed was the strife between the Normans and the wild Welsh tribes, and the fair vale of the Severn was the scene of many a bloody conflict. The castle, though with varying owners and fortunes, continued a stronghold to the day of its surrender to the soldiers of the Commonwealth; after which nothing remained but blackened walls—another added to the long list of feudal fortresses “destroyed by Cromwell.”

The road southward from Newtown leads through as wild a tract of country as we saw in Britain. Not the Scotch Highlands or the hills at the headwaters of the Welsh Wye equal it in loneliness and seeming remoteness. But it is more picturesque than the localities just named, for the hills are mostly wooded, and the shallow, sparkling river which we followed—though usually far above it—runs through a narrow valley diversified in spots with trees and bits of meadow land. For eight miles out of Newtown we encountered a continually rising grade, which brought us to a narrow upland road running along the hillsides, which drop in almost precipitous slopes to the river far below. The road twists along the edge of the hills, at times in almost circular curves, and too close to the sharp declivity at its side for one’s ease of mind. At Llandrindod Wells we had passed the wildest part of the road and we noted with surprise the handsome houses and palatial hotels of a town we had scarcely heard of before, but which has recently become the queen of Welsh inland resorts. The declining sun shot his rays along the purple hilltops that encircle the place and the shadows were already long in the pine-clad valleys. It was growing late, but after a hurried consultation we decided against the pretentious hotels of Llandrindod Wells.

We dashed across the arched stone bridge over the Wye at Builth Wells and brought sharply up in front of the Lion Hotel, which, standing squarely across the way, seemed to bar farther progress, and we had little choice but to stop for the night. The Lion’s accommodations are not elaborate by any means, but it was quite too late to go farther. Though Builth has mineral wells and a “pump house,” a mile from the town, there is nothing of the resort hotel about the Lion; on the contrary, it is the plainest of old-country inns, apparently a haven for fishermen rather than health seekers. Its walls were covered with the antique hand-colored prints so characteristic of English inns; its mantels were loaded with queer pieces of bric-a-brac; tallow candles lighted the bedrooms. The electric push-button had not superseded the tasseled rope by the bedside, with which one jangles a bell hung on a coiled spring in the hallway. But it is spacious and has an air of old-world comfort about it—little modern except its motor garage.

After all, we were fortunate in our pause at Builth, for we beheld the most glorious of sunsets on the long reaches of the Wye as it enters the town from the west. The river dances down the valley in a series of broad, shallow rapids, resting itself here and there in a quiet lakelike pool. The sunset hues were subdued rather than brilliant; pink and salmon tints were reflected in the stream as we stood on the bridge and looked up the quiet valley, and these faded into hazy amethyst as the twilight advanced. It was a scene of quiet, pastoral beauty amidst surroundings that do not lack for legend and antiquity, and altogether left a pleasing recollection of an unattractive Welsh town which in itself has little of the picturesque.

We were away early in the morning following the Wye Valley road, with its vistas of hill and river, as far as Llyswen, where we crossed the hills to Brecon. Our stop here was short, as our route was to bring us again to this interesting old town in a few days. We did not often find a more delightful road than that down the Usk Valley to Crickhowell, Abergavenny and Caerleon. Its excellent surface and long sweeping grades might be a temptation to speed, but it is quite neutralized by the constant beauty of the scenery and interest of the country. On either hand are the low Welsh mountains, wooded to the very crest, and at times far below we caught the gleam of the river—though so shrunken as to scarcely deserve the name—leaping and flashing over its stone-strewn bed. Here and there a quiet village nestled unobtrusively by the roadside; at Crickhowell we found a larger but somnolent town whose huge church is crowded with memorials of the old Welsh warriors. Even larger and more impressive is the great Priory Church at Abergavenny, whose square battlemented tower one might think had been built to withstand the sieges of the devil, even as the Welsh castles were made almost impregnable against the attack of man. No quainter town did we pass than Usk; it must have been much the same when the Conqueror sent his legions to overawe the Welsh tribes, save that its castle, then no doubt a lordly fortress, is now a decayed ivy-mantled ruin. Its greater importance in years gone by is attested by its mighty priory church, ill in keeping with the hamlet that clusters about it today. According to tradition, two kings of England were born in Usk—Richard III. and Edward IV.—and Roman remains indicate an important station on the spot almost at the dawn of the Christian Era.

But what shall one say of Caerleon, farther down the valley, now practically a suburb of Newport, where dim legends still linger to the effect that it was once King Arthur’s capital and that here was the castle

A prosaic historian, however, declares that in all likelihood the King Arthur legend sprang from Roman ruins which some hundreds of years ago existed in Caerleon in great magnificence. At any rate, modern Caerleon has no trace of the regal capital of the early king—a bald, unattractive town close upon the Usk, now broadened into a considerable stream, dull with the taint from the manufactories on its banks.

At Newport we are entering a different order of things, brought about by the great industrial development in South Wales due to the coal and iron mines and large shipping interests. In the last century the population of the town has grown from one to seventy thousand. The old order is indeed dead here. There is no effort to attract the tourist, and the castle, almost the sole relic of antiquity, is crumbling into unhindered ruin as it sits far above the drear expanse of mud left by the receding tide. We hasten through the town—we may see a hundred such at home—and seek from a friendly policeman the road to Caerphilly, a village off in the hills which we know has no new-world counterpart.

For ten miles from Newport we wend our way over a dusty, ill-kept byroad with sharp turns and steep grades, and before we come to the village we see from some distance the broken towers and battlements of Caerphilly Castle. We pass through the gateway in the straggling walls and the scene of desolation and massive ruin that lies before us is hardly paralleled in impressiveness among British castles, unless it be by Corfe in Dorset. A great round tower, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, with walls ten feet thick, split as by a thunder stroke, greets our eyes. Half of it is still standing, though leaning many feet from the vertical, and the other half lies in mighty fragments of masonry at its base. There had been four such towers, but only one is comparatively entire. The walls, though much shattered in places, still serve to give an idea of the vast extent of the ancient castle. The huge banqueting hall has been roofed and recalls in a rather pathetic way the rude magnificence of its feudal state.

But words quite fail to describe Caerphilly—such a maze of grim walls and towers, such a network of ruinous apartments, piled deep with debris, overawe and confuse one. Only the antiquarian may painfully decipher the plan of the castle and in imagination reconstruct it as it was when it stood a bulwark between warring nations. But to the ordinary beholder it will remain a mystery set in the midst of the barren hills, and he will hardly care to resolve the impressive pile into its original parts. It will seem an entity to him—it is hard to think it otherwise than it appears today. Its romance is deepened by the obscurity of its history—for the story of Caerphilly has many blanks and breaks. There is no record of when it was first begun and there is doubt as to when it was finally destroyed. Some say the ruin is the work of Cromwell, and it surely seems worthy of that master of the art of wrecking castles; others declare that it was abandoned at the time of the Commonwealth, having been destroyed by Shakespeare’s “Wild irregular Glendower,” in his endless conflicts with the English.

But after all, does it not savor even more of romance that mystery enshrouds the past of the stupendous structure whose scanty remnants encircle us? Why call upon prosaic history to dispel the charm that emanates from the gray ruin, half hidden by its mantle of ivy and dashed here and there with the purple valerian and yellow wall-flower? Such would be folly indeed as we sit on the soft green turf of the court and contemplate the fantastic outlines in the glow of the sunset; when all is silence save for the angry brawls of the rooks, which have entered into full possession—reincarnations, perhaps, of the erstwhile contentious owners.

But the spell of Caerphilly dissolves and a different world surrounds us as we enter the broad modern streets of Cardiff and pause before the American-looking Park Hotel. Cardiff as a village antedates the Conquest, but as a metropolis of two hundred thousand, it is quite recent. One hundred years ago it had a population of a thousand; in 1837, of ten thousand; and it is easy to see that the traces of antiquity in such a city must be few. Its future was assured when the first Marquis of Bute hazarded his entire fortune in the construction of the extensive docks from which shipments of coal and iron are now made. It was a lucky throw of the die for the nobleman, for today his grandson owns the greater part of Cardiff and is one of the wealthiest men in the Kingdom.

Cardiff Castle—forever associated with the dark fate of Prince Robert—has been replaced by a Moorish palace—or rather, an incongruous mixture in which the Moorish predominates. It is easy to gain admittance to this imposing palace, where art has been entirely unhampered by cost, and if garishness and incongruity sometimes prevail, interest is nevertheless continual. There is a fragment of the keep of the old castle in the grounds and Duke Robert’s dungeon is incorporated into the new structure—a dark, vaultlike cavity in the walls where for thirty years the unfortunate prince, the direct heir to the throne of the Conqueror, was kept a close prisoner by his brother Henry. Legend has it that his eyes were put out because of an attempt to escape and that he died in the dungeon at the age of eighty years.

Cardiff’s municipal buildings are a delight; white stone palaces standing in ample grounds with wide pleasant approaches—altogether models of what civic structures ought to be. Immense and busy as it is, there is little in Cardiff to detain one on such a pilgrimage as ours, and we were away before noon on the Swansea road.

Llandaff is but three miles from Cardiff, and we reached it by a short detour. Its cathedral, recently restored, is probably the most interesting of Welsh churches excepting St. David’s. The site has been occupied by a church ever since the year 600, though the present structure dates from early Norman times. It fell into complete ruin after the time of the Commonwealth. One chronicler declares that “Cromwell’s men turned the nave into an ale house, penned calves in the choir and fed pigs at the font,” though they must have been rather unorthodox Puritans to countenance the ale house. No attempt was made to preserve the fine church from decay until about two hundred years later, and so deplorable was its condition that the task of restoration seemed a well-nigh impossible one. Still, after much difficulty, the work was happily carried out, and the twin towers—one a slender spire and its companion square-topped with Gothic finials—present a very unusual though not unpleasant effect. Inside there is a mixture of Norman and early English styles, and some beautiful Decorated work. There are three paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that arrest attention at once—done in that artist’s best style long ere he was known to fame. The windows, though modern, are of unusual excellence, having been designed by Burne-Jones and other notable artists. Near by are the ruins of the bishop’s palace, whose fortresslike walls tell of a time when the churchman and the warrior went hand in hand. Its destruction some six hundred years ago is attributed to Owen Glendwr, whose record for castle-smashing in Wales is second only to that of Cromwell. The village of Llandaff is still rural and pretty; it is quite clear of the skirts of Cardiff, being separated from the city by the River Taff. The old stone cross still stands in front of the palace and there is now little to remind one of the big modern city near at hand, which may one day absorb its ancient but diminutive neighbor.

The Swansea road looks well enough on the map, but our recollections of it are far from pleasing. Dusty and rough, and crowded with traffic and tram lines in many places, it wends through a cheerless and often uninteresting country. It passes frequent mining towns straggling along for considerable distances and there were many drunken men reeling on the streets. It was market day at Cowbridge and the village was filled with countrymen, many of whom treated our right to the road with supreme indifference. One fellow in a broad-brimmed slouch hat that made him look like an American cowboy, and who was carrying a black bottle that might hold a gallon, saluted us with owl-like gravity and brought the car to a sharp stop by standing directly in our way.

While getting rid of our would-be acquaintance, we cast about to find a place for luncheon and soon lighted on the sign of the Bear, the sole inn, according to Baedeker. It was some distance to the next town and we decided to patronize the Bear, though its outer appearance filled us with misgivings. But if its outward aspect inspired doubt, words fail in speaking of the inside. The handbook of the Royal Automobile Club in setting forth the delights of a tour in America pays its compliments to our rural Bonifaces in this wise: “The hotel accommodation in country districts is often very poor and dirty,” all of which may be painfully true. But in competition for distinction in these particulars, the Bear would certainly not be distanced by any American rival. Perhaps the confusion and disarray was partly due to the market-day rush, but the grime and dirt that prevailed everywhere seemed as ancient as the ramshackle old house itself. The dining-room was a large apartment with many long tables of boards laid on trestles—an arrangement, no doubt, to accommodate the patronage of market day—and the remnants of the dinner were still heaped upon them in dire confusion. A glance at the meal placed before us and at the dirty hands of the waiting-girl was enough—we left the provender untouched and summarily departed from the table. With difficulty we got the attention of the barmaid, who also acted as cashier, settled our score, and sallied forth dinnerless upon the King’s highway.

Threading our way carefully through the streets of Neath, several miles farther on, with little thought save to get away from the bad road and unpleasant surroundings, we caught a glimpse, down a side street, of an ivy-clad ruin of great extent. We followed the rough rubbish-covered lane that leads directly to the entrance gate of Neath Abbey, as it proved to be. There was no caretaker in charge, but two or three workmen were engaged in cleaning away the debris, which was several feet deep in many of the roofless apartments. Everything indicated that once the abbey had stood in the pleasantest of valleys on the bank of a clear, placid little river; but the coaling industry, which flings its pall over everything in Southern Wales, had played sad havoc with the sylvan retreat of the old Cistercian monks. Heaps of rubbish dotted the uncared-for green about the place. Coal trains rattled on the railroad near at hand. The spot where the abbey now stands so forlornly is the heart of the suburban slums of Neath, and so isolated and forgotten is it that few pilgrims come to view its melancholy beauty. For it is beautiful—does not our picture tell the story?—the mouldering walls hung with masses of ivy, the fine doorways, the great groups of mullioned windows and the high chimneys, green to the very tops, all combine to charm the beholder despite the unlovely surroundings. The workmen told us that the abbey belonged to Lord Somebody—we have quite forgotten—and that he was going to clean up the premises and make necessary repairs. The craze now so prevalent in Britain for preserving every ancient ruin had extended even to Neath Abbey and perchance its titled owner will beautify the surroundings and the fine ruin may yet become a shrine for pilgrims—that the motor-car will bring.

Swansea—Swansy, they call it—had always brought to my mind, I hardly know why, the idea of a seaside resort town; but never was preconceived notion more erroneous. If there is a blacker, uglier, more odoriferous town of the size in the Kingdom, I do not recollect where it is. Here are the greatest copper smelting works in the world and from these come the pungent, stifling odors that so unpleasantly pervade the city. Here, too, is the great steel plant of the Siemens Company and many allied industries. And yet there was a time when Swansea had at least the promise of a resort town before it, when the poet Landor declared that “Italy has a fine climate but that of Swansea is better; that it is the only spot in Britain where one may have warmth without wet.” Then it had six hundred people, but now its population exceeds one hundred thousand. We had no desire to linger and rapidly climbed the long steep hill that leads to the highland road to Carmarthen. We soon left behind us the smoke and grime of the collieries and smelting-works, and the road over which we rapidly coursed took us through a rather pretty rural section, though the hills are numerous and steep.

It was late when we came into Carmarthen, a bare, drab-colored town, but withal rather more prosperous-looking than the average small town of South Wales. The thirty-two miles to Haverfordwest swept by too rapidly to permit us to see the country other than as a fleeting panorama. Just as the twilight faded into dark we came sharply into Haverfordwest and with grave misgivings halted at the Castle Hotel. Here we must stop, willy nilly, for there was nothing that promised better in many miles. But to apply the cautious Yorkshireman’s expression to the Castle Hotel, “It might be worse,” and we were willing to let the uncomfortable feather-beds and the dingy candle-lit rooms overlooking the stable yard, be atoned for by the excellent dinner that our landlady prepared at so late an hour.

We did not linger at Haverfordwest on the following morning, though perhaps the castle and the priory church might well have detained us. The castle, which crowns the terribly steep hill to which the town seems to cling somewhat precariously, has been reduced to a county jail—or gaol, as the English have it—and thus robbed of much of its romance. Still, it is an impressive old fortress, dominating the town with its huge bulk, and it has figured much in the annals of Pembrokeshire.

Haverfordwest has a history antedating the Conquest. It was undoubtedly a stopping-place for the troops of pilgrims who in early days journeyed to the sacred shrine of St. David’s, the Ultima Thule of Southern Wales, sixteen miles to the west, following a tortuous road over many steep and barren hills. The railroad ends at Haverfordwest and no doubt the facilities for reaching St. David’s a thousand years ago were quite as good as today, the daily mail cart and coach twice a week in season being the only regular means of transportation. No wonder in days when strenuous journeys to distant shrines were believed to be especially meritorious, two trips to St. David’s were allowed to confer the spiritual benefit of a single pilgrimage to Rome itself.

And we ourselves are pilgrims to St. David’s shrine—not by the slow horseback cavalcade of old days, or the more modern coach, but by motor car. Our forty-horse engine makes quick work of the precipitous hill out of Haverfordwest and carries us without lagging over the dozen long steep hills on the road to the ancient town. Shortly before reaching St. David’s the road drops down to the ocean side, but the sea is hidden by a long ridge of stones and pebbles piled high by the inrushing waters. The tide was far out and we saw no finer beach on the Welsh coast than the one that lay before us as we stood on the stony drift. A great expanse of yellow—almost literally golden—sand ran down to a pale green sea, which lapped it in silvery sunlit ripples, so quiet and peaceful was the day. But one could not but think of the scope afforded for the wild play of the ocean on stormy days—how the scene must be beyond all description

We left the car near the ancient stone cross in the deserted market place of St. David’s and sought the cathedral, which is strangely situated in a deep dell, the top of the Norman tower being only a little above the level of the market place. The cathedral has been recently restored, more perhaps on account of its historic past than any present need for it, but the bishop’s palace, once one of the most elaborate and extensive in the Kingdom, stands in picturesque decay, beyond any hope of rehabilitation. As to the old-time importance of St. David’s as contrasted with its present isolation, the words of an enthusiastic English writer may perhaps serve better than my own:

“Centuries ago St. David’s bishop had seven palaces for his pleasure; now he does not dwell in his own city. Of old the offerings at St. David’s shrine were divided every Saturday among the priests by the dishful, to save time in counting the coins; now a few pounds weekly is accounted a good collection total. Ancient kings came hither in state to confess their sins; in this travelling age only the enterprising tourist comes to the city at all. Eight or nine roads converged upon the little place on its headland of about three miles square, but the majority are now no better than humble weather-worn lanes. The Atlantic winds sweep across the depression by the Alan brook in which St. David’s Cathedral, the extensive ruins of the bishop’s palace, and the many other fragments of St. David’s glorious prime nestle among trees, with the humble cottages of the city itself surrounding them as if they loved them. Even the dilapidation here is so graceful that one would hardly wish it altered into the trim and rather smug completeness of many an English cathedral with its close.”

The cathedral is extremely interesting and made doubly so by an intelligent verger whom we located with considerable difficulty. Pilgrims to St. David’s were apparently too infrequent to justify the good man’s remaining constantly on duty as in larger places, and a placard forbidding fees, may have dampened his zeal in looking for visitors. But we found him at last in his garden, and he did his part well; nothing curious or important in the history of the cathedral was forgotten by him. The leaning Norman pillars, the open roof of Irish oak, the gorgeous ceiling with its blood-red and gold decorations, and many relics discovered during the restoration, were pointed out and properly descanted upon. But one might write volumes of a shrine which kings once underwent many hardships to visit, among them Harold the Saxon and his conqueror, William of Normandy. Nothing but a visit can do it justice, and with the advent of the motor car, old St. David’s will again be the shrine of an increasing number of pilgrims, though their mission and personel be widely different from the wayfarers of early days.

There is only one road out of the lonely little town besides that which brought us thither and we were soon upon the stony and uncomfortable highway to Cardigan. Here we found roadmaking in primitive stages; the broken stone had been loosely scattered along the way waiting for the heavy-wheeled carts of the farmers to serve the purpose of the steam roller. The country is pitifully barren and the little hovels—always gleaming with whitewash—were later called to mind by those in Ireland. There are no great parks with fine mansions to relieve the monotony of the scene. Only fugitive glimpses of the ocean from the upland road occasionally lend a touch of variety. At Fishguard, a mean little town with a future before it—for it is now the Welsh terminus of the Great Western Railway’s route to Ireland—we paused in the crowded market square and a courteous policeman approached us, divining that we needed directions.

“The road to Cardigan? Straight ahead down the hill.”

“It looks pretty steep,” we suggested.

“Yes, but nothing to the one you must go up out of the town. Just like the roofs of those houses there, and the road rough and crooked. Yes, this is all there is of Fishguard; pretty quiet place except on market days.”

We thanked the officer and cautiously descended the hill before us. We then climbed much the steepest and most dangerous hill we found in all the twelve thousand or more miles covered by our wanderings. To our dismay, a grocer’s cart across the narrow road compelled us to stop midway on the precipitous ascent, but the motor proved equal to the task and we soon looked back down the frightful declivity with a sigh of relief. We were told later of a traveling showman who had been over all the main roads of the Island with a traction engine and who declared this the worst hill he knew of.

Newport—quite different from the Eastern Welsh Newport—and Cardigan are quaint, old-world villages, though now decayed and shrunken. I will not write of them, though the history of each is lost in the mists of antiquity and the former possesses an imposing though ruinous castle. The road between them is hilly, but the hills are well wooded and the prospects often magnificent and far-reaching. We found it much the same after leaving Cardigan, though the country is distinctly better and more pleasing than the extreme south. The farm houses appear more prosperous, and well-cared-for gardens surround them. Nowhere did we find the people kinder or more courteous. An instance occurred at Carmarthen, where we stopped to consult our maps. The owner of a near-by jewelry shop came out and accosted us. Did we want information about the roads? He had lived in Carmarthen many years and was familiar with all the roads about the town. To Llandovery? We had come too far; the road north of the river is the best and one of the prettiest in Wales. It would be worth our while to go back a mile and take this road.

Thanking him, we retraced our way through the long main street of the town and were soon away over one of the most perfect and beautiful of Welsh highways. It runs in straight broad stretches between rows of fine trees, past comfortable-looking farm houses, and through cozy little hamlets nestling amid trees and shrubbery, and seems constantly to increase in charm until it takes one into Llandovery, twenty-five miles from Carmarthen and the center of one of the most picturesque sections of Wales.

Lying among wooded hills in a valley where two clear little rivers join their waters, Llandovery—the church among the waters—is a village of surpassing loveliness. The touch of antiquity so necessary to complete the charm is in the merest fragment of its castle, a mouldering bit of wall on a mound overlooking the rivers—dismantled “by Cromwell’s orders.” Delightful as the town is, its surroundings are even more romantic. The highest peaks of South Wales, the Beacon and the Black Mountains, overlook it and in the recesses of these rugged hills are many resorts for the fisherman and summer excursionist. From the summits are vast panoramas of wooded hills and verdant valleys. The view is so far-reaching that on a clear day one may see the ocean to the south; or, far distant in the opposite direction, the snow-crowned mountains of Northern Wales.

The road from Llandovery to Brecon is as fine as that to Carmarthen, though it is more sinuous and hilly. But it is perfectly surfaced and climbs the hills in such long sweeping curves and easy uniform grades that the steepest scarcely checks the flight of our car as it hastens at a thirty-five mile gait to Brecon. It is growing late—we might well wish for more time to admire the views from the hillside road. The valleys are shrouded in the purple haze of twilight and the sky is rich with sunset coloring. It has been a strenuous day for us—one of our longest runs over much bad road. We note with satisfaction the promise of a first-class hotel at Brecon, though we find it crowded almost to our exclusion. But we are so weary that we vigorously protest and a little shifting—with some complaint from the shifted parties—makes room for us. We are told in awe-stricken whispers that the congestion is partly due to the fact that Her Grace the Duchess of B—— (wife of one of the richest peers in England) has arrived at the hotel with her retinue, traveling in two motor cars. She was pointed out to us in the morning as she walked along the promenade in very short skirts, accompanied by her poodle. We heard of this duke often in our journeyings, one old caretaker in a place owned by the nobleman assuring us that his income was no less than a guinea a minute! The duke owns many blocks of buildings in some of the busiest sections of London. The land occupied by them came into possession of the family through the marriage of the great-grandfather of the present holder of the title with the daughter of a dairy farmer who owned much of the quarter where London real estate is now of fabulous value—thus showing that some of the English aristocracy rose to wealth by means quite as plebeian as some of those across the water. Nowadays the penniless duke would have crossed the Atlantic to recoup his fortune, instead of turning to a rich dairyman’s daughter in his own country.

But in indulging in this more or less interesting gossip, I am forgetting Brecon and the Castle Hotel, rightly named in this instance, for the hotel owns the old castle; it stands in the private grounds which lie between the hotel and the river and are beautified with flowers and shrubbery. Brecon boasts of great antiquity and it was here that Sir John Price made overtures to Henry VIII. which resulted in the union of England and Wales. The priory church is one of the largest and most important in Wales and is interesting in architecture as well as historical association. We saw the plain old house where the ever-charming Mrs. Siddons was born—a distinction of which Brecon is justly proud. And Brecon is not without its legend of Charles the Wanderer, who passed a day or two at the priory during one of his hurried marches in Wales, and the letter he wrote here is the first record we have of his despair of the success of the royal cause.

My chapter is already too long—but what else might be expected of an effort to crowd into a few pages the record of sights and impressions that might well fill a volume?