He Then Uttered A Rather
Eloquent Eulogium On The Beauties Of The Black Capital, And Wound
Up All By Saying That He Would Rather Be A Brazier's Dog At
Brummagen Than Head Waiter At The Best Establishment In Wales.
After dinner I took up a newspaper and found in it an account of
the battle of Inkerman, which appeared to have been fought on the
fifth of November, the very day on which I had ascended Plynlimmon.
I was sorry to find that my countrymen had suffered dreadfully, and
would have been utterly destroyed but for the opportune arrival of
the French. "In my childhood," said I, "the Russians used to help
us against the French; now the French help us against the Russians.
Who knows but before I die I may see the Russians helping the
French against us?"
CHAPTER CVIII
Town of Newport - The Usk - Note of Recognition - An Old
Acquaintance - Connamara Quean - The Wake - The Wild Irish - The
Tramping Life - Business and Prayer - Methodists - Good Counsel.
NEWPORT is a large town in Monmouthshire, and had once walls and a
castle. It is called in Welsh Cas Newydd ar Wysg, or the New
Castle upon the Usk. It stands some miles below Caerlleon ar Wysg,
and was probably built when that place, at one time one of the most
considerable towns in Britain, began to fall into decay. The Wysg
or Usk has its source among some wild hills in the south-west of
Breconshire, and, after absorbing several smaller streams, amongst
which is the Hondu, at the mouth of which Brecon stands, which on
that account is called in Welsh Aber Hondu, and traversing the
whole of Monmouthshire, enters the Bristol Channel near Newport, to
which place vessels of considerable burden can ascend. Wysg or Usk
is an ancient British word, signifying water, and is the same as
the Irish word uisge or whiskey, for whiskey, though generally
serving to denote a spirituous liquor, in great vogue amongst the
Irish, means simply water. The proper term for the spirit is
uisquebaugh, literally acqua vitae, but the compound being
abbreviated by the English, who have always been notorious for
their habit of clipping words, one of the strongest of spirits is
now generally denominated by a word which is properly expressive of
the simple element water.
Monmouthshire is at present considered an English county, though
certainly with little reason, for it not only stands on the western
side of the Wye, but the names of almost all its parishes are
Welsh, and many thousands of its population still speak the Welsh
language. It is called in Welsh Sir, or Shire, Fynwy, and takes
its name from the town Mynwy or Monmouth, which receives its own
appellation from the river Mynwy or Minno, on which it stands.
There is a river of much the same name, not in Macedon but in the
Peninsula, namely the Minho, which probably got its denomination
from that race cognate to the Cumry, the Gael, who were the first
colonisers of the Peninsula, and whose generic name yet stares us
in the face and salutes our ears in the words Galicia and Portugal.
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