below a sort of wear. The rocks on either side of the fall are lofty, and richly decorated, and the trees on each bank-oak, ash, and alder-well planted for your purpose. The water descends eighty feet perpendicular, and at about three parts of the descent is lost behind the rocks, but appears again at the bottom, darting smooth along, and springing over the wear in a variety of light cascades. This wear is a graceful appendage to the fall, like a fringe to a lady's dress.

STATION.

Let the rocks on each side of the fall meet at about three-fourths the whole height from the top. Then approach the wear, till you see the water above it. (Pl. 2, fig. 1.)

A curious anecdote is told of Sir Herbert Mackworth, to whom this property formerly belonged. He had much admired this water-fall, and had cut a road down to it. But the last time he visited it, in passing along this very road, a thorn from one of the bushes ran into his finger. Inflammation

and mortification quickly followed, and in a few days terminated his life.

The other fall is somewhat lower down, and named, from its elegance perhaps, the Lady's Cascade. The eye may trace a graceful line through almost every part-the bend of the ribbed rock across the river, the sweep of the water in one unbroken sheet, the winding channel, and the slope of the towering wooded steep behind. The height is about thirty feet. My sketch was taken from the left bed of the river looking up.

STATION.

Let the shrubby bank on your left screen the near end of the ribbed rock; recede, till you just lose sight of the river above it.

This cascade, though much more beautiful, resembles in character that of the Hepsey; both of them being crossed by a projecting brow of rock-a singular, but not unfrequent feature here.

I had almost forgotten a geological curiosity in this neighbourhood, called Bwa Maen (the stone

of the bow.) A flat fronted rock of grey marble, about ninety feet high, and seventy broad; the outline of which forms the fourth part of a circle, its strata lying in concentric lines. I saw it only from above, but apprehend you will not find it worth drawing; a rude engraving of it is given in Warner's Second Walk.

These are all the lions of Pontneath Vechan, that I at least have seen; and you will, I think, agree with me that they deserve to be visited oftener than they are. There are probably many spots yet unexplored, which would well repay the artist's search. And a ride or drive hither up the Vale of Neath, is an excursion that may be confidently recommended to those, who have not leisure or strength for laborious. travel. They would, in a few miles, find themselves amidst scenes marked with some of the most romantic features of the Principality, and entirely different from the neighbourhood of Neath or Swansea.

Yours, &c.

LETTER VI.

FROM Pontneath Vechan to Neath, are thirteen miles an easy pleasant road along the vale; the latter part by the side of the canal. The only attraction to a picturesque traveller is the fall of the Cledaugh,* at Melin Court, five miles from Neath. You will find a neat sketch of it in Malkin's Work, by Laporte. Artists, however, are not agreed upon its merits; I have heard it called a mere spout; you must judge for yourself, I did not see it. A cascade at Aberdillis mill is praised by some, but I have seen no drawing of it by any modern artist.

Neath contains nothing in your way. It is close, and with few exceptions, meanly built. I

* Or Clydach, sheltered. Melin Court is Melin y Cwrt, Court Mill.

+ South Wales, p. 597.

found the Neath Arms a comfortable second-rate inn; the principal are said to be the Ship and Castle, and the Angel. The castle is a trifling ruin. The abbey, too,* (does not your pencil start at the word?) will disappoint you. The remains, though large, are nothing but detached masses, picturesque neither taken singly nor combined. But it has been judiciously observed, that "the artist's eye may in a great degree be unfairly prejudiced against the ruins, by the dirty, unharmonizing tints they assume; and the same forms, placed in a solitary and woodland vale, might become objects of attention and admiration.Ӡ They are inhabited now by the poor families of labourers in the adjacent collieries and copper mines.

To Britton Ferry is a mile and a half. Here the scenery is exceedingly rich and beautiful: the

* Neath Abbey is said to have afforded a temporary refuge to our unfortunate Edward the Second, after his escape from Caerphilly castle. This seems the only interesting circumstance in its history. Malkin, p. 598.

Sir R. C. Hoare's Trans. Girald. Cambr. vol. i. p. 164.