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.
I left Newport at about ten o'clock on the 16th; the roads were
very wet, there having been a deluge of rain during the night. The
morning was a regular November one, dull and gloomy. Desirous of
knowing whereabouts in these parts the Welsh language ceased, I
interrogated several people whom I met. First spoke to Esther
Williams. She told me she came from Pennow, some miles farther on,
that she could speak Welsh, and that indeed all the people could
for at least eight miles to the east of Newport. This latter
assertion of hers was, however, anything but corroborated by a
young woman, with a pitcher on her head, whom I shortly afterwards
met, for she informed me that she could speak no Welsh, and that
for one who could speak it, from where I was to the place where it
ceased altogether, there were ten who could not.
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