Well, if I couldn't
speak better English than that I'd never speak English at all. No,
David; if you must speak at all, stick to Cumraeg." Then forthwith, all
the company set themselves in violent motion, the women rushing up to me
with their palms and fingers spread out in my face, without touching me,
however, as they wheeled round me at about a yard's distance, crying: "A
man from the north country, hee, hee!" and the fellows acting just in the
same way, rushing up with their hands spread out, and then wheeling round
me with cries of "A man from the north country, hoo, hoo!" I was so
enraged that I made for a heap of stones by the road-side, intending to
take some up and fling them at the company. Reflecting, however, that I
had but one pair of hands and the company at least forty, and that by
such an attempt at revenge I should only make myself ridiculous, I gave
up my intention, and continued my journey at a rapid pace, pursued for a
long way by "hee, hee," and "hoo, hoo," and: "Go back, David, to your
goats in Anglesey, you are not wanted here."

I began to descend a hill forming the eastern side of an immense valley,
at the bottom of which rolled the river. Beyond the valley to the west
was an enormous hill, on the top of which was a most singular-looking
crag, seemingly leaning in the direction of the south. On the right-hand
side of the road were immense works of some kind in full play and
activity, for engines were clanging and puffs of smoke were ascending
from tall chimneys. On inquiring of a boy the name of the works I was
told that they were called the works of Level Vawr, or the Great Level, a
mining establishment; but when I asked him the name of the hill with the
singular peak, on the other side of the valley, he shook his head and
said he did not know. Near the top of the hill I came to a village
consisting of a few cottages and a shabby-looking church. A rivulet
descending from some crags to the east crosses the road, which leads
through the place, and tumbling down the valley, joins the Ystwyth at the
bottom. Seeing a woman standing at the door, I inquired the name of the
village.

"Spytty Ystwyth," she replied, but she, no more than the boy down below,
could tell me the name of the strange-looking hill across the valley.
This second Spytty or monastic hospital, which I had come to, looked in
every respect an inferior place to the first. Whatever its former state
might have been, nothing