100 PRINCIPAL FISHING STATIONS. 



it appears to be entirely enclosed by lofty hills: 

 the distant mountains which form one side of the 

 vale of Cothy, receding to the north, open a passage 

 for that stream to its confluence with the Towy. 

 The shattered walls of Dryslyn Castle crown the 

 summit of an isolated rocky eminence, which rises 

 abruptly out of the vale ; and a little further west- 

 ward, is a larger eminence, the celebrated Grongar 

 Hill. Under the shelter of a blackthorn, still re- 

 maining on its summit, Dyer is said to have com- 

 posed the poem which has conferred an immortality 

 on his name. 



LLANBOIDY, six miles and a half from St. Clears, 

 on a tributary of the Taf. 



BRECHVA, eleven miles from Carmarthen. Two 

 very beautiful brooks unite close to this village, and 

 flow towards the Cothy, through the meadows op- 

 posite the only public-house there. Higher up in 

 the mountains is another little river *, which is very 



* While fishing this stream, in the summer of 1 828, the author 

 experienced a pleasing instance of the simplicity of manners and 

 genuine hospitality that distinguishes the peasantry of the agri- 

 cultural districts of Wales. In crossing the mountain, at the 

 foot of which the Brechva stream murmurs over its rocky bed, 

 and precipitates itself in a hundred little cascades towards its 

 junction with the Cothy, he was espied by a farmer, apparently 

 engaged in collecting his cattle, that had strayed over the 

 unbounded right of pasture attached to the mountain farms. 

 The temptation of examining a stranger, obtaining an insight 

 into his pursuits, destination, &c. was too strong to be resisted 

 in a country where so little occurs to interrupt the monotony of 

 rustic life, and where the dress and appearance of an English- 



