Moreover, the Welsh word for haste is not fil but ffrwst. Fil
means a scudding or darting through the air, which can have nothing
to do with the building of a castle. Caerfili signifies Philip's
City, and was called so after one Philip a saint. It no more means
the castle of haste than Tintagel in Cornwall signifies the castle
of guile, as the learned have said it does, for Tintagel simply
means the house in the gill of the hill, a term admirably
descriptive of the situation of the building.
I started from Caerfili at eleven for Newport, distant about
seventeen miles. Passing through a toll-gate I ascended an
acclivity, from the top of which I obtained a full view of the
castle, looking stern, dark and majestic. Descending the hill I
came to a bridge over a river called the Rhymni or Rumney, much
celebrated in Welsh and English song - thence to Pentref Bettws, or
the village of the bead-house, doubtless so called from its having
contained in old times a house in which pilgrims might tell their
beads.
The scenery soon became very beautiful - its beauty, however, was
to a certain extent marred by a horrid black object, a huge coal
work, the chimneys of which were belching forth smoke of the
densest description.
