l the male population who overtook us, to favour him by
kicking the unhappy leader to death. An occasional benevolent Christian
complied with his request to the extent of a dig with a stout boot
under the rib; but every now and then, the furibund jarvey apologised to
us for the slowness of our course by asking--"Won't I serve him out when
I gets a whip!" A whip he at last got, and made up for lost time by
belabouring the lazy culprit in a very scientific manner; and having got
us all into a gallop, he became quite pleasant and communicative. All
the people in Monmouthshire are Welsh, that is very clear; and
Monmouthshire is as Welsh a county as Carnarvon, in spite of the maps of
geographers, and the circuits of the Judges. The very faces of the
people are evidence of their Taffy-hood. We have had no experience yet
if they carry out the peculiar ideas on the rights of property,
attributed to Taffy in the ancient legend, which relates the method that
gentleman took to supply himself with a leg of beef and a marrow bone;
but their voices and names are redolent of leeks, and no Act of
Parliament can ever make them English. You might as well pass an Act of
Parliament to make our friend Joseph Hume's speeches English. And
therefore, throughout the narrative, we shall always consider ourselves
in Wales, till we cross the Severn again. We trotted round the park wall
of a noble estate called Pearcefield, and when we had crowned the
ascent, our Jehu turned round with an air of great exultation, pulling
up his horses at the same time, and said--"There! did you ever see a
sight like that? This is the Double View." He might well be proud--for
such a prospect is not to be equalled, I should think, in the world. The
Wye is close below you, with its rich banks, frowned over by a
magnificent crag, that forms the most conspicuous feature of the
landscape; and in the distance is the river Severn, pursuing its shining
way through the fertile valleys of Glo'stershire, and by some _deceptio
visus_, for which we cannot account, raised apparently to a great height
above the level of its sister stream. It has the appearance of being
conveyed in a vast artificially raised embankment, laughing into scorn
the grandest aqueducts of ancient Rome, and bearing perhaps a greater
resemblance to the lofty-bedded Po in its passage through the plains of
Lombardy. The combination of the two rivers in the same scene, with the
peculiar characteristics of each b