178 MY LIFE 



miles, with a width varying from two to three miles, the 

 boundary running for the most part along the crest of the 

 mountains that bound the valley on the northwest. We 

 lodged and boarded at a farmhouse called Bryn-coch (Red 

 Hill), situated on a rising ground about two miles north of 

 the town. The farmer, David Rees, a rather rough, stout 

 Welshman, was also bailiff of the Duffryn estate. His wife 

 could not speak a word of English, but his two daughters 

 spoke it very well, with the pretty rather formal style of 

 those who have first learnt it at school. Here we stayed more 

 than a year, living plainly but very well, and enjoying the 

 luxuries of home-made bread, fresh butter and eggs, 

 unlimited milk and cream, with cheese made from a mixture of 

 cow's and sheep's milk, having a special flavour, which I soon 

 got very fond of. In this part of Wales it is the custom to 

 milk the ewes chiefly for the purpose of making this cheese, 

 which is very much esteemed. Another delicacy we first 

 became acquainted with here was the true Welsh flummery, 

 called here " sucan blawd " (steeped meal), in other places 

 " Llumruwd " (sour sediment), whence our English word 

 " flummery." It is formed of the husks of the oatmeal 

 roughly sifted out, soaked in water till it becomes sour, then 

 strained and boiled, when it forms a pale brown sub-gelatinous 

 mass, usually eaten with abundance of new milk. It is a very 

 delicious and very nourishing food, and frequently forms 

 the supper in farmhouses. Most people get very fond of it, 

 and there is no dish known to English cookery that is at all 

 like it ; but I believe the Scotch " sowens " is a similar or 

 identical preparation. This dish, with thin oatmeal cakes, 

 home-made cheese, bacon, and sometimes hung beef, with 

 potatoes and greens, and abundance of good milk, form the 

 usual diet of the Welsh peasantry, and is certainly a very 

 wholesome and nourishing combination. We, however, had 

 also two other kinds of bread, both excellent, especially when 

 made from new wheat. One was the ordinary huge loaves 

 of farmhouse bread, the other what was called backstone 

 bread — large flat cakes about a foot in diameter and an inch 

 thick, baked over the fire on a large circular iron plate 



