Next morning I descended the valley of the Dyfi to Machynlleth, a thoroughly Welsh town situated among pleasant green meadows. At Machynlleth, in 1402, Owen Glendower held a parliament, and was formally crowned King of Wales. To Machynlleth came Dafydd Gam, with the view of assassinating Owen, who, however, had him seized and conducted in chains to a prison in the mountains of Sycharth.
On November 2, I left Machynlleth by a steep hill to the south, whence there is a fine view of the Dyfi valley, and set out for the Devil's Bridge. The road was at first exceedingly good, and the scenery beautiful. Afterwards I had to pass over very broken ground, and the people of whom I asked my way were Saxon-haters and uncivil. Night was coming on fast when I reached the inn of Pont Erwyd.
Next day I went on to the Devil's Bridge in the agreeable company of a Durham mining captain, who had come to this country thirty-five years before to help in opening Wales—that is, by mining in Wales in the proper fashion, which means the North-country fashion. Arrived at the Devil's Bridge, I viewed its magnificent scenery, and especially observed the cave of the Wicked Children, the mysterious Plant de Bat, sons of Bat or Bartholomew, who concealed themselves in this recess and plundered the neighbourhood. Finally, they fell upon a great gentleman on the roads by night, and not only robbed, but murdered him. "That job was the ruin of Plant de Bat," an old postman told me, "for the great gentleman's friends hunted after his murderers with dogs, and at length came to the cave, and, going in, found it stocked with riches, and the Plant de Bat sitting upon the riches, not only the boys, but their sister, who was as bad as themselves. So they took out the riches and the Plant de Bat, and the riches they did give to churches and hospitals, and the Plant de Bat they did execute, hanging the boys, and burning the girl."
After a visit to the Minister's Bridge, not far distant, a place very wild and savage, but not comparable in sublimity with the Devil's Bridge, I determined to ascend the celebrated mountain of Plynlimmon, where arise the rivers Rheidol, Severn and Wye. I caused my guide to lead me to the sources of each of the three rivers. That of the Rheidol is a small, beautiful lake, overhung on two sides by frightful crags. The source of the Severn is a little pool some twenty inches long, covered at the bottom with small stones; the source of the Wye is a pool not much larger. The fountain of the Rheidol stands apart from the others, as if, proud of its own beauty, it disdained their homeliness. I drank deeply at all three sources.
Next day I went by Hafod and Spitty Ystwith over a bleak moorland country to the valley of the Teivi, and turned reverently aside to the celebrated monastery of Strata Florida, where is buried Dafydd ab Gwilym, the greatest genius of the Cymbric race. In this neighbourhood I heard a great deal of the exploits of Twm Shone Catti, the famous Welsh robber, who became a country gentleman and a justice of the peace.
From Tregaron, eight miles beyond Strata Florida, I went on to Llan Ddewi Brefi and Lampeter, and crossed over to Llandovery in the fair valley of the Towy. From there I went over the Black Mountains, in mist and growing darkness, to Gutter Vawr, and thence to Swansea. Through a country blackened with industry, I walked to Neath; thence in rainy weather to Merthyr Tydvil, where I went to see the Cyfartha Fawr Ironworks. Here I saw enormous furnaces and heard all kinds of dreadful sounds.
From Merthyr Tydvil I journeyed to Caerfili by Pen-y-Glas; then to Newport; then by Caer Went, once an important Roman station and now a poor, desolate place, to Chepstow. I went to the Wye and drank of the waters at its mouth, even as some time before I had drunk of the waters at its source. Returning to the inn, I got my dinner, and placing my feet against the sides of the grate I drank wine and sang Welsh songs till ten o'clock. Then, shouldering my satchel, I proceeded to the railroad station and took a first-class ticket to London.
[The Bible in Spain]
I.—The First Journey
In 1835 George Henry Borrow, fresh from a journey in Russia as the Bible Society's agent, set out for Spain to sell and distribute Bibles on the Society's behalf. This mission, in the most fervidly Roman Catholic of all European countries, was one that required rare courage and resourcefulness; and Borrow's task was complicated by the fact that Spain was in a disturbed state owing to the Carlist insurrection. Borrow's journeys in Spain, which were preceded by a tour in Portugal, and followed by a visit to Morocco, lasted in all about four years. In December, 1842, he published "The Bible in Spain"—a work less remarkable as a record of missionary effort than as a vivid narrative of picturesque travel episodes, and a testimony to its author's keen delight in an adventurous life of wanderings in the open air.