tory of the Britons_,
wherein he combined all the fables of the time so ingeniously with the
truth that they became alike history. Out of his imagination grew the
tale of the "Round Table" and its knights.

[Illustration: MONMOUTH BRIDGE.]

[Illustration: GATE ON MONMOUTH BRIDGE.]

Upon the old bridge crossing the Monnow stands an ancient gate-house,
constructed in the style that prevailed in the thirteenth century, but
it is doubtful if this was a military work, its probable use being the
collection of tolls on the produce brought into the town. It is pierced
with postern arches for the foot-passengers, and still retains the place
for its portcullis. All around the Monmouth market-place are the old
houses where the celebrated Monmouth caps were made that were so popular
in old times, and of which Fluellen spoke when he told Henry V., "If
Your Majesty is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps."
Monmouth is not a large town, having but six thousand inhabitants, but
it takes a mayor, four aldermen, two bailiffs, and twelve councillors to
govern them, and its massive county-jail is a solid warning to all
evil-doers. From the summit of the lofty Kymin Hill, rising seven
hundred feet on the eastern side of the town, there is a grand panorama
over the valley of the Wye. This hill is surmounted by a pavilion and
temple, built in 1800 to record the naval victories of England in the
American wars. Farther down the valley was the home of the late Lord
Raglan, and here are the ruins of Raglan Castle, built in the fifteenth
century. For ten weeks in the Civil War the venerable Marquis of
Worcester held this castle against Fairfax's siege, but the redoubtable
old hero, who was aged eighty-four, ultimately had to surrender.

[Illustration: RAGLAN CASTLE.]

TINTERN ABBEY AND CHEPSTOW CASTLE.

The Wye at Monmouth also receives the Trothy River, and the confluence
of the three valleys makes a comparatively open basin, which, however,
again narrows into another romantic glen a short distance below the
town. Wild woods border the steep hills, and the Wye flows through the
western border of the Forest of Dean, an occasional village attesting
the mineral wealth by its blackened chimneys. Here, below Redbrook, was
the home of Admiral Rooke, who captured Gibraltar in 1704, and farther
down are the ruins of the castle of St. Briard, built in the days of
He