hollow above which the hospice stands. You
descend by successive flights of steps, some of which are very slippery
and insecure. On your right is the Monks' River, roaring down its dingle
in five successive falls, to join its brother the Rheidol. Each of the
falls has its own peculiar basin, one or two of which are said to be of
awful depth. The length which these falls with their basins occupy is
about five hundred feet. On the side of the basin of the last but one is
the cave, or the site of the cave, said to have been occupied in old
times by the Wicked Children--the mysterious Plant de Bat--two brothers
and a sister, robbers and murderers. At present it is nearly open on
every side, having, it is said, been destroyed to prevent its being the
haunt of other evil people. There is a tradition in the country that the
fall at one time tumbled over its mouth. This tradition, however, is
evidently without foundation, as from the nature of the ground the river
could never have run but in its present channel. Of all the falls, the
fifth or last is the most considerable: you view it from a kind of den,
to which the last flight of steps, the ruggedest and most dangerous of
all, has brought you. Your position here is a wild one. The fall, which
is split into two, is thundering beside you; foam, foam, foam is flying
all about you; the basin or cauldron is boiling frightfully below you;
hirsute rocks are frowning terribly above you, and above them forest
trees, dank and wet with spray and mist, are distilling drops in showers
from their boughs.

But where is the bridge, the celebrated bridge of the Evil Man? From the
bottom of the first flight of steps leading down into the hollow you see
a modern-looking bridge, bestriding a deep chasm or cleft to the
south-east, near the top of the dingle of the Monks' River; over it lies
the road to Pont Erwyd. That, however, is not the Devil's Bridge; but
about twenty feet below that bridge, and completely overhung by it, don't
you see a shadowy, spectral object, something like a bow, which likewise
bestrides the chasm? You do! Well, that shadowy, spectral object is the
celebrated Devil's Bridge, or, as the timorous peasants of the locality
call it, the Pont y Gwr Drwg. It is now merely preserved as an object of
curiosity, the bridge above being alone used for transit, and is quite
inaccessible except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of the
neighbourhood, who sometimes at