xi] BRECKNOCKSHIRE 163 



ascent of the Beacons, a short account of them will be both 

 interesting and instructive, 



The northern face of the mountain is very rocky and pre- 

 cipitous, while on the southern and western sides easy slopes 

 reach almost to the summit. The last few yards is, however, 

 rather steep, and at the very top there is a thick layer of peat, 

 which overhangs the rock a little. On surmounting this on 

 the west side the visitor finds himself in a nearly flat triangular 

 space, perhaps three or four acres in extent, bounded on the 

 north by a very steep rocky slope, and on the other sides 

 by steep but not difficult grass slopes. To the north-east he 

 sees the chief summit about a quarter of a mile distant and 

 nearly fifty feet higher, while connecting the two is a narrow 

 ridge or saddle-back, which descends about a hundred feet in 

 a regular curve, and then rises again, giving an easy access to 

 the higher peak. The top of this ridge is only a foot or two 

 wide and very steep on the northern slope, but the southern 

 slope is less precipitous, and about a hundred yards down it 

 there is a small spring where the visitor can get deliciously 

 cold and pure water. The north-eastern summit is also 

 triangular, a little larger than the other, and bounded by a 

 very dangerous precipice on the side towards Brecon, where 

 there is a nearly vertical slope of craggy rock for three or four 

 hundred feet and a very steep rocky slope for a thousand, 

 so that a fall is almost certainly fatal, and several such 

 accidents have occurred, especially when parties of young men 

 from Brecon make a holiday picnic to the summit. 



What strikes the observant eye as especially interesting 

 is the circumstance that these two triangular patches, forming 

 the culminating points of South Wales, both slope to the 

 south-west, and by stooping down on either of them, and 

 looking towards the other, we find that their surfaces corre- 

 spond so closely in direction and amount of slope, that they 

 impress one at once as being really portions of one con- 

 tinuous mountain summit. This becomes more certain when 

 we look at the whole mountain mass, of which they form a part, 

 known as the " Fforest Fawr," or great forest of Brecknock. 

 This extends about twenty miles from east to west and ten 



