We now push on along the crest of the moorland, striking once more into the course of the so-called Flemings' Way. After the manner of most early roads, this ancient trackway runs athwart the open highlands, avoiding the hollow places; and although much of it has been obliterated by the ploughshare, and the gradual advance of cultivation, its course may still be traced in the less-frequented localities, as it wends its way up country from the site of old Menapia towards the county-town of Carmarthen.
An ancient warrant of Sir Nicholas Martin, referring to the use of this old mountain road by the Flemish colony, observes: 'And well they might make this unusual waie for their passage, for that, passinge alonge the toppe of the highest hill, they might the better descrie the pryvie ambushes of the Countrye people, which might in streightes and woodds annoy them.'
At a place appropriately called the Pass of the Winds, we fall in with the main road as it crosses the hills from Haverfordwest to Cardigan. This we descend for a matter of half a mile, passing across a heathery upland ycleped the Hill of the Unstrung-Bows, until we come to Tafarn Bwlch, a humble wayside alehouse some thousand feet or so above sea-level.
Looking out across a broad brown reach of moorland, the eye detects a sort of rude stone causeway, curving amidst rush-grass and scattered peat-hags. This is known as Bedd-yr-Avangc, or the Beaver's Grave; à propos of which it is worthy of note that Giraldus Cambrensis mentions the beaver as abounding in his day on Teivyside, while more than one venerable legend locates this amphibious quadruped in the llyns and streams throughout wild Wales.
Arrived at Tafarn Bwlch, we call for such cheer as the lowly inn can supply; but the bill of fare proves somewhat scanty, for, in the words of the great lexicographer, 'of provisions its negative catalogue is very copious.' The goodwife, however, rises to the occasion, and regales us with a repast such as appetites sharpened by lusty mountain air make short enough work of. Then we burn incense to the drowsy god in a nook of the chimney-place, where a peat-fire glows untended upon the ample hearth.
Starting forth again like giants refreshed, we breast the stony ascent that leads to the pass amidst a sharp squall of wind and rain, which drags in a darkening veil athwart the lonesome landscape, blotting now this, now that familiar landmark from the view.
From the head of the pass we descend into the vale of the infant Syvynvy, rounding the broad green slopes of the Eagles' Hill, the westernmost buttress of the Precelly range. At the crossways we bear to the left, with the disused windmill of the slate quarries showing conspicuously upon a neighbouring hill.
Pushing on towards Maenclochog, we pass near the defunct Rosebush Station, on the line of the Maenclochog railway, which at present is undergoing in leisurely fashion a process of reconstruction. Indeed, in the matter of slowness, the builders of this line may fairly claim to have 'broken the record,' for 'tis whispered that seventeen years' work has added little more than four miles to the length of the railway!
Be that as it may, we now make our entry into the village of Maenclochog, a bleak-looking place enough, where the storm-rent trees beside the roadway attest the violence of the winter gales that sweep across these bare, lofty uplands.
Towards the farther end of the village, at a widening of the ways, stands the parish church, a structure of no great antiquity, dedicated to St. Mary. The clergyman, who has ministered here for upwards of thirty years, now courteously introduces us to the well-tended interior, the most noteworthy feature of which is a plain old font, with a singular cup-shaped recess upon its eastern face, the purpose of which we are quite at a loss to conjecture.