PRINCIPAL FISHING STATIONS. 119 



house. Among the descendants of that ancient 

 family was Sir Roger Vaughan, knighted in the ago- 

 nies of death, by Henry the Fifth, on the field of 

 Agincourt, together with Sir David Gam and two 

 others of his brave countrymen, who received their 

 death wounds in their sovereign's defence. 



YSTRADVELLTRY, fifteen miles from Brecknock, 

 beautifully situated in the sequestered vale of Melte, 

 on a branch of that river, which in summer, when 

 the water is low, runs through a confined rocky 

 channel till it arrives nearly opposite the village, 

 where it enters a whirlpool on its southern bank, 

 and disappears until it reaches a very remark- 

 able cavern, a little below FORTH YR OGOV, or, 

 " the Mouth of the Cave." Through this cavern the 

 Melte pursues its course, rushing over the rocky 

 fragments that obstruct its progress ; and near 

 the centre precipitates itself from a considerable 

 height into a deep abyss, where the roaring of the 

 cataract and the darkness of the cavern tend to 

 excite a sensation of awe. At the distance of a 

 few hundred feet, the river reappears, and, in time 

 of floods, bursts out with prodigious force, forming a 

 a series of cataracts of uncommon grandeur and 

 beauty. From a projecting cliff at the eastern 

 side of the vale, the river, just above its confluence 

 with the Hepste, descends in one unbroken sheet, 

 forming a magnificent cascade of which the noise is 

 tremendous ; and such is the violence of its fall, 

 that it loses every appearance of water, and as- 

 i 4 



