298 A BOTANICAL TOUR THROUGH SOUTH WALES, &C. 



decoction is admirable to assuage inflammations and tetrous humours, and espe- 

 cially the scorbut : but an extract, or theriaca, may be composed of the berries, 

 which is not only efficacious to eradicate this epidemical inconvenience, and 

 greatly to assist longevity (so famous is the story of Neander), but is a kind of 

 Catholicon against all infirmities whatever !" Who, then, believing this, would 

 be without an Elder-tree, or neglect paying his respects to it with the devotion 

 Boerhaave is said to have done ?* 



The subdued light of dying day invested the upper cataract of the Mellte, as I 

 gazed upon its falling waters taking their seventy feet plunge into the naked glyn 

 beneath them. This waterfall has a greater volume than Cil Hepste, but ha3 

 altogether a different character, from not being overtopped on all sides by rocks, 

 and immersed in the gloom of embowering foliage. It must also be viewed from 

 above, for though I scrambled down the slate-rock into the chasm below, and thus 

 obtained a nearer view, the path (if path that can be called where there is none) 

 is not very alluring. Some distance further are the lower falls of the Mellte, 

 pleasing and romantic, and girdled with wood, through which their white foam is 

 conspicuous, but calling for no detailed description, especially as a long walk 

 remained to be effected back to Glyn Neath. 



As we retraced our steps to Port nedd Vechan, we descended an exposed 

 heathy moor, and turned into a wood, shrouded in whose marshy intricacies 

 the Pryddin gushes a small spout-like cascade called Scwd Wladis, or the Lady's 

 Fall, near which the Cinclus aquations, or Dipper, is sure to be seen, with its 

 brown plumage and white breast. Amidst the wood, a short distance below the 

 fall, is a Logan or Rocking-stone, composed of the quartzose breccia found upon 

 the mountains above, whence this boulder must have heen rolled, to do its duty 

 as a stone of judgment in this secluded spot, Except the imperfect stone-circle 

 on Craig-y-Dinas, and the Logan here, I am not aware of any other druidical 

 remains in this vicinity. Higher up the Pryddin is another fall of that river, 

 called Yagwd Einon Gam, or the Crooked Waterfall, which the gloom of evening 

 did not now allow me to visit. On a former occasion a " Dim Saesriach " led me to 

 the foot of it by a villainous route, in which we forded the river perhaps a dozen 

 times. Rain having recently fallen, and the torrent rising over the slippery foot- 

 stones, my ardour was somewhat damped before arriving at the expected scene, 

 which, however, deserves inspection from the height of the gloomy rock, the 

 oblique direction of the upper sheet of water, and the spectral Oak that solemnly 

 frowns high over all. 



Of the various water-falls in and about Glyn Neath, I feel inclined to award 



* Evelyn's Silva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees, &c., fol., 4th Edit., 1706. 



