bout ten feet wide, on the farther side of which
was a precipice with a path at least quite as steep as the one down which
I had come, and without any trees or shrubs by which those who used it
might support themselves. The torrent rolled about nine feet below the
bridge; its channel was tortuous; on the south-east side of the bridge
was a cauldron, like that on which I had looked down from the bridge over
the river of the monks. The man passed over the bridge and I followed
him; on the other side we stopped and turned round. The river was
rushing and surging, the pot was boiling and roaring, and everything
looked wild and savage; but the locality, for awfulness and mysterious
gloom, could not compare with that on the east side of the Devil's
Bridge, nor for sublimity and grandeur with that on the west.

"Here you see, sir," said the man, "the Bridge of the Offeiriad, called
so, it is said, because the popes used to pass over it in the old time;
and here you have the Rheidol, which, though not so smooth nor so well
off for banks as the Hafren and the Gwy, gets to the sea before either of
them, and, as the pennill says, is quite as much entitled to honour:--

"'Hafren a Wy yn hyfryd eu wedd
A Rheidol vawr ei anrhydedd.'

Good rhyme, sir, that. I wish you would put it into Saesneg."

"I am afraid I shall make a poor hand of it," said I; "however, I will do
my best:--

"'Oh pleasantly do glide along the Severn and the Wye;
But Rheidol's rough, and yet he's held by all in honour high.'

"Very good rhyme that, sir! though not so good as the pennill Cymraeg.
Ha, I do see that you know the two languages and are one poet. And now,
sir, I must leave you, and go to the hills to my sheep, who I am afraid
will be suffering in this dreadful weather. However, before I go, I
should wish to see you safe over the bridge."

I shook him by the hand, and retracing my steps over the bridge, began
clambering up the bank on my knees.

"You will spoil your trousers, sir!" cried the man from the other side.

"I don't care if I do," said I, "provided I save my legs, which are in
some danger in this place, as well as my neck, which is of less
consequence."

I hurried back amidst rain and wind to my friendly hospice, where, after
drying my wet clothes as well as I could, I made an excellent dinner on
fowl and bacon. Dinner over, I took up a newspaper which was brought me,
and read an article about the Russian war,