various subjects: on the power
of the Welsh language; its mutable letters; on Huw Morris, and likewise
on ale, with an excellent glass of which he regaled me. I was much
pleased with him, and thought him a capital specimen of the Welsh country
clergyman. His name was Walter Jones.

After staying about half-an-hour I took leave of the good kind man, who
wished me all kind of happiness, spiritual and temporal, and said that he
should always be happy to see me at Llan Silin. My friend R--- walked
with me a little way and then bade me farewell. It was now late in the
afternoon, the sky was grey and gloomy, and a kind of half wintry wind
was blowing. In the forenoon I had travelled along the eastern side of
the valley, which I will call that of Llan Rhyadr, directing my course to
the north, but I was now on the western side of the valley, journeying
towards the south. In about half-an-hour I found myself nearly parallel
with the high crag which I had seen from a distance in the morning. It
was now to the east of me. Its western front was very precipitous, but
on its northern side it was cultivated nearly to the summit. As I stood
looking at it from near the top of a gentle acclivity a boy with a team,
whom I had passed a little time before, came up. He was whipping his
horses, who were straining up the ascent, and was swearing at them most
frightfully in English. I addressed him in that language, inquiring the
name of the crag, but he answered Dim Saesneg, and then again fell to
cursing; his horses in English. I allowed him and his team to get to the
top of the ascent, and then overtaking him, I said in Welsh: "What do you
mean by saying you have no English? You were talking English just now to
your horses."

"Yes," said the lad, "I have English enough for my horses, and that is
all."

"You seem to have plenty of Welsh," said I; "why don't you speak Welsh to
your horses?"

"It's of no use speaking Welsh to them," said the boy; "Welsh isn't
strong enough."

"Isn't Myn Diawl tolerably strong?" said I.

"Not strong enough for horses," said the boy "if I were to say Myn Diawl
to my horses, or even Cas Andras, they would laugh at me."

"Do the other carters," said I, "use the same English to their horses
which you do to yours?"

"Yes" said the boy, "they'll all use the same English words; if they
didn't the horses wouldn't mind them."

"What a triumph," thought I, "for the English language that the Welsh