He told me that he came from Llan Gedwin, and was going
to a place called Gwern something, in order to fetch home some
sheep. After a time he asked me where I was going.
"I am going to see the Pistyll Rhyadr," said I
We had then just come to the top of a rising ground.
"Yonder's the Pistyll!" said he, pointing to the west.
I looked in the direction of his finger, and saw something at a
great distance, which looked like a strip of grey linen hanging
over a crag.
"That is the waterfall," he continued, "which so many of the Saxons
come to see. And now I must bid you good-bye, master; for my way
to the Gwern is on the right"
Then followed by the boy he turned aside into a wild road at the
corner of a savage, precipitous rock.
CHAPTER LXX
Mountain Scenery - The Rhyadr - Wonderful Feat.
AFTER walking about a mile with the cataract always in sight, I
emerged from the glen into an oblong valley extending from south to
north, having lofty hills on all sides, especially on the west,
from which direction the cataract comes. I advanced across the
vale till within a furlong of this object, when I was stopped by a
deep hollow or nether vale into which the waters of the cataract
tumble. On the side of this hollow I sat down, and gazed down
before me and on either side. The water comes spouting over a crag
of perhaps two hundred feet in altitude between two hills, one
south-east and the other nearly north. The southern hill is wooded
from the top, nearly down to where the cataract bursts forth; and
so, but not so thickly, is the northern hill, which bears a
singular resemblance to a hog's back. Groves of pine are on the
lower parts of both; in front of a grove low down on the northern
hill is a small white house of a picturesque appearance. The water
of the cataract, after reaching the bottom of the precipice, rushes
in a narrow brook down the vale in the direction of Llan Rhyadr.
To the north-east, between the hog-backed hill and another strange-
looking mountain, is a wild glen, from which comes a brook to swell
the waters discharged by the Rhyadr. The south-west side of the
vale is steep, and from a cleft of a hill in that quarter a slender
stream rushing impetuously joins the brook of the Rhyadr, like the
rill of the northern glen. The principal object of the whole is of
course the Rhyadr. What shall I liken it to? I scarcely know,
unless to an immense skein of silk agitated and disturbed by
tempestuous blasts, or to the long tail of a grey courser at
furious speed.
