BEGGARS OX HORSEBACK. 



being the shortest hitherto performed by any 

 Welsh tourist. It must have been five o'clock 

 when we rode down the stony hill beside the no 

 less dry and stony river-bed, where at any time, 

 except in this rainless year, the water must swirl 

 pleasantly below the grey village of Llanfair. 

 Welsh villages are composed of nearly equal parts 

 of inns and chapels, so that such names as '' The 

 Cross Foxes," " Rehoboth," "The Goat," "The 

 Grapes," "Addoldy," "Salem," and " Bethesda," 

 greet the traveller in startling succession. We 

 crossed the humpbacked bridge, above the fev- 

 ered bed of the river, where the children sat and 

 played at giving parties with many long drowned 

 crockeries, and we rode the length of the little 

 street and selected the last of the inns that clung 

 to its steep sides. 



It was the glimpse of oak settles and panels, 

 and gleams of old brass and copper, that we saw 

 through the open door of the Wynnstay Arms that 

 turned the scale, already tilted by the vision of 

 a fat ostler boy with gold earrings, who grinned 



