THE BRECKNOCK BEACONS, FROM THE TAFF.
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.
LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL: THE WEST FRONT (p. [164]).
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”:—