I found him a highly intelligent person: on my talking to him about the name of the place, he said that some called it Spytty Cynfyn, and others Spytty Cynwyl, and that both Cynwyl and Cynfyn were the names of people, to one or other of which the place was dedicated, and that like the place farther on called Spytty Ystwyth, it was in the old time a hospital or inn for the convenience of the pilgrims going to the great monastery of Ystrad Flur or Strata Florida.
Passing through a field or two we came to the side of a very deep ravine, down which there was a zigzag path leading to the bridge. The path was very steep, and, owing to the rain, exceedingly slippery. For some way it led through a grove of dwarf oaks, by grasping the branches of which I was enabled to support myself tolerably well; nearly at the bottom, however, where the path was most precipitous, the trees ceased altogether. Fearing to trust my legs I determined to slide down, and put my resolution in practice, arriving at a little shelf close by the bridge without any accident. The man, accustomed to the path, went down in the usual manner. The bridge consisted of a couple of planks and a pole flung over a chasm about ten feet wide, on the farther side of which was a precipice with a path at least quite as steep as the one down which I had come, and without any trees or shrubs, by which those who used it might support themselves. The torrent rolled about nine feet below the bridge; its channel was tortuous; on the south-east side of the bridge was a cauldron, like that on which I had looked down from the bridge over the river of the monks. The man passed over the bridge and I followed him; on the other side we stopped and turned round. The river was rushing and surging, the pot was boiling and roaring, and everything looked wild and savage; but the locality for awfulness and mysterious gloom could not compare with that on the east side of the Devil’s Bridge, nor for sublimity and grandeur with that on the west.
“Here you see, sir,” said the man, “the Bridge of the Offeiriad, called so, it is said, because the popes used to pass over it in the old time; and here you have the Rheidol, which, though not so smooth nor so well off for banks as the Hafren and the Gwy, gets to the sea before either of them, and as the pennill says is quite as much entitled to honour:—
“‘Hafren a Wy yn hyfryd eu wêdd
A Rheidol vawr ei anrhydedd.’
Good rhyme, sir, that. I wish you would put it into Saesneg.”
“I am afraid I shall make a poor hand of it,” said I; “however, I will do my best.
“‘O pleasantly do glide along the Severn and the Wye;
But Rheidol’s rough, and yet he’s held by all in honour high.’”
“Very good rhyme that, sir! though not so good as the pennill Cymraeg. Ha, I do see that you know the two languages and are one poet. And now, sir, I must leave you, and go to the hills to my sheep, who I am afraid will be suffering in this dreadful weather. However, before I go, I should wish to see you safe over the bridge.”
I shook him by the hand, and retracing my steps over the bridge began clambering up the bank on my knees.
“You will spoil your trowsers, sir!” cried the man from the other side.