ve Llangollen, he expressed considerable regret, but said
that it was natural for me to wish to return to my native country. I
told him that before returning to England I intended to make a pedestrian
tour in South Wales. He said that he should die without seeing the
south; that he had had several opportunities of visiting it when he was
young, which he had neglected, and that he was now too old to wander far
from home. He then asked me which road I intended to take. I told him
that I intended to strike across the Berwyn to Llan Rhyadr, then visit
Sycharth, once the seat of Owain Glendower, lying to the east of Llan
Rhyadr, then return to that place, and after seeing the celebrated
cataract across the mountains to Bala--whence I should proceed due south.
I then asked him whether he had ever seen Sycharth and the Rhyadr; he
told me that he had never visited Sycharth, but had seen the Rhyadr more
than once. He then smiled and said that there was a ludicrous anecdote
connected with the Rhyadr, which he would relate to me. "A traveller
once went to see the Rhyadr, and whilst gazing at it a calf which had
fallen into the stream above, whilst grazing upon the rocks, came
tumbling down the cataract. 'Wonderful!' said the traveller, and going
away reported that it was not only a fall of water, but of calves, and
was very much disappointed, on visiting the waterfall on another
occasion, to see no calf come tumbling down." I took leave of the kind
old gentleman with regret, never expecting to see him again, as he was in
his eighty-fourth year--he was a truly excellent character, and might be
ranked amongst the venerable ornaments of his native place.

About half-past eight o'clock at night John Jones came to bid me
farewell. I bade him sit down, and sent for a pint of ale to regale him
with. Notwithstanding the ale, he was very melancholy at the thought
that I was about to leave Llangollen, probably never to return. To
enliven him I gave him an account of my late expedition to Wrexham, which
made him smile more than once. When I had concluded he asked me whether
I knew the meaning of the word Wrexham: I told him I believed I did, and
gave him the derivation which the reader will find in an early chapter of
this work. He told me that with all due submission, he thought he could
give me a better, which he had heard from a very clever man, gwr deallus
iawn, who lived about two miles from Llangollen on the Corwen road. In