Green hills embrace Llandovery as if they loved it. The little town is not so interesting as its situation, apart from its old inn, the “Castle,” a mellow, time-worn house. The very rooms here in which you sup on eggs and bacon (if you are lucky enough) may have known that worthy, the Vicar of Llandingat, who, in the seventeenth century, daily came hither for his ale, attended by a goat as thirsty as himself. One day, it is said, this goat drank well rather than wisely, and thenceforward declined to cross the threshold of the “Castle” with its master. One may hope that the Vicar learnt a lesson from the goat.
Towy is here a great, clear, rapid stream, and so it continues for the remaining thirty miles of its career. Famous view-points on it are the bridges of Llandovery, Llangadock, and Llandilo, the bridges themselves as graceful as the valley. Llandilo stands on a knoll on the west bank of the river, and rejoices in its superiority to Llandovery as a market-town. This, to the stranger, is much less commendatory than its nearness to one of the most beautiful seats in South Wales, Dynevor, where the Barons of that title have long held sway. The ruins of the old Dynevor Castle, on a hill crowded with oak, ash, and beech trees, are from the river quite ideally picturesque. It is a pity that the “common herd” of tourists have so misbehaved themselves that Lord Dynevor has felt compelled to deny free access to so charming a spot. Golden Grove, an estate as winsome as its name, on the other bank of the Towy, opposite Dynevor, has had its attractions sung by Dyer, the poet, who was born in the neighbourhood, and died rector of Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, in 1757: here is the Grongar Hill, where “often, by the murm’ring rill,” one “hears the thrush while all is still.”
Between Llandilo (Llan-Teilo: the Church of St. Teilo, who died Bishop of Llandaff, in A.D. 540) and Carmarthen, Towy’s zigzags are many and eccentric. After Dynevor another castle, that of Dryslwyn, is soon passed. It is a mere ruin on a green hill. The Nelson Monument, high in the distance, on the south side of the river, is a more assertive feature in the landscape, though less welcome. Midway towards Carmarthen, we cross the Cothi, the longest of all Towy’s affluents, and here, near its mouth, as great a stream as the Towy at Llandovery. Looking up it, there is even here some suggestion of its fine upper gorges. At Abergorlech, some ten miles nearer its sources, either artist or angler would find reason to rejoice in it, while higher still it absorbs streamlets right and left as greedily as the Towy itself.
One must, however, resist the temptation to loiter on Cothi’s bridge by Llanegwad. There is nothing of especial mark to see by the way, save Merlin’s grotto, where the Arthurian wizard fell a victim to the wiles of the fairy Viviana, and where he is still imprisoned, and will be for all time. But you must carry a fine faith with you to be fitly moved by the legend, and it will not be inexcusable if you fail to find it.
At the Ivy Bush Hotel of Carmarthen, whence there is a commanding view over the lower part of the valley, one may think tenderly of Sir Richard Steele, who once lived in it. The tablet to his memory in the parish church of St. Peter here describes him as the “first chief promoter of the periodical press of England.” What would he say to the growth of the babe for which he is thus made responsible?
CAREW CASTLE (p. [182]).
This capital town, which in the time of Giraldus had walls of burnt brick, is nowadays of the modernest. Its castle, or what was left of it, has been turned into a jail; though you may discern some of its ancient stonework in the adjacent alleys. The town stands well above the river and the seven-arched bridge beneath which Towy now moves with stately ease towards the sea, a navigable stream. There is a small quay here, and a larger one some three miles farther down, for local coasters. For five miles more Towy holds its own against the ocean; and yet another five have to be passed ere, at Carmarthen Bar, the fresh waters gathered from the peaceful and fertile vales of Carmarthenshire are wholly merged in the salt sea.
We have now come to a singular district of Wales—a part of South Wales that is not Wales, but “a little England in Wales.” Close by Towy’s mouth, another river Taf (though with only one “f”) enters the sea very broadly with the body of water yielded to it by the rivers Dewi Fawr, Gynin, Feni, and Marias, which all have bright tortuous courses among the green hills of Pembrokeshire. And four or five miles still farther west, the “Llans” and “Abers” which proclaim the land of the Cymry end, and give place to names Danish, Norwegian, and Norman. This continues until we are at Newgale Bridge, on St. Bride’s Bay, eight miles from the thoroughly reverend and Welsh city of St. David’s. Newgale Bridge has a small ale-house adjacent, where they seem contemptuously ignorant of the existence of the Welsh counties of Carmarthen and Glamorganshire to the east, so positively do they inform you that on one side of the streamlet spanned by the bridge it is England, and on the other side Wales.