and was soon in conversation with him. I
praised the beauty of the river and its banks: he said that both were
beautiful and delightful in summer, but not at all in winter, for then
the trees and bushes on the banks were stripped of their leaves, and the
river was a frightful torrent. He asked me if I had been to see the
place called the Robber's Leap, as strangers generally went to see it. I
inquired where it was.

"Yonder," said he, pointing to some distance down the river.

"Why is it called the Robber's Leap?" said I.

"It is called the Robber's Leap, or Llam y Lleidyr," said he, "because a
thief pursued by justice once leaped across the river there and escaped.
It was an awful leap, and he well deserved to escape after taking it." I
told him that I should go and look at it on some future opportunity, and
then asked if there were many fish in the river. He said there were
plenty of salmon and trout, and that owing to the river being tolerably
high, a good many had been caught during the last few days. I asked him
who enjoyed the right of fishing in the river. He said that in these
parts the fishing belonged to two or three proprietors, who either
preserved the fishing for themselves, as they best could by means of
keepers, or let it out to other people; and that many individuals came
not only from England, but from France and Germany and even Russia for
the purpose of fishing, and that the keepers of the proprietors from whom
they purchased permission to fish, went with them, to show them the best
places, and to teach them how to fish. He added that there was a report
that the river would shortly be rhydd or free and open to any one. I
said that it would be a bad thing to fling the river open, as in that
event the fish would be killed at all times and seasons, and eventually
all destroyed. He replied that he questioned whether more fish would be
taken then than now, and that I must not imagine that the fish were much
protected by what was called preserving; that the people to whom the
lands in the neighbourhood belonged, and those who paid for fishing did
not catch a hundredth part of the fish which were caught in the river:
that the proprietors went with their keepers, and perhaps caught two or
three stone of fish, or that strangers went with the keepers, whom they
paid for teaching them how to fish, and perhaps caught half-a-dozen fish,
and that shortly after the keepers would return and catch on their