little rocky stream, the Honddu, which here enters the Usk, and gives the Welsh name to the town of Brecon-Aberhonddu-aber meaning the confluence or meeting of waters. So, Aberystwith, which has retained its Welsh name, is situated where the little river Ystwith enters the sea. While living in Radnorshire, where hardly any Welsh is spoken, I had begun to take an interest in the picturesque names which primitive people always give to localities. The first of these to which my attention was called by my brother was Llanfihangel-nant-Melan, a village about ten miles west of Kington, the name meaning "the Church of St. Michael on Melan's brook." So, Abbey-cum-hir is the Abbey in the long valley; while the celebrated Vale of Llangollen is, according to George Borrow, named after Collen, an ancient British hero who became Abbot of Glastonbury, but afterwards retired into the valley named after him.

Our road lay along the north side of the valley of the Usk, but at some distance from the river, through a very picturesque country, crossing many small rivers, often looking down upon the river Usk, which I took special interest in as my native stream, here approaching its source, and with frequent views of the Beacons when nearer hills did not intervene to block the view. After a pleasant walk of about six miles we reached the tiny village of Trallong, the parish we had to survey, and obtained lodgings in the house of a shoemaker, where we were very comfortable for some months. The house was pleasantly situated about two hundred and fifty feet above the river, with an uninterrupted view to the south-east over woody hills of moderate height to the fine range of the Great Forest, culminating in the double peaks of the Beacons, which were seen here fully separated with the narrow ridge connecting them. At sunset they were often beautifully tinted, and my brother made a charming little water-colour sketch of them, which, with most of his best sketches, were placed in an album by my sister, and this was stolen or lost while she was moving in London.

The family here were rather interesting. The father, a middle-aged man, could not speak a word of English. His

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grown-up sons, who helped in the shoemaking, spoke but little. The wife, however, a delicate woman and a great invalid, though having to do all the work of the household, spoke English very well, and told us that she preferred it to Welsh, because it was less tiring, the Welsh having so many gutturals and sounds which require an effort to pronounce correctly. There were also two little girls who went to the village school, and who spoke English beautifully as compared with our village children, because they had learnt it from the schoolmaster and their mother. Of course, the whole conversation in the house was in Welsn, and I picked up a few common words and phrases, and could understand others, though, owing to my deficiency in linguistic faculty, I never learnt to speak the language.

The schoolmaster was an intelligent and well-educated man, and he often called in the evening to have a little conversation with my brother. But almost the only special fact I remember about him was his passion for cold water. Every morning of his life he walked to the river half a mile off to take a dip before breakfast, and in some frosty days in winter I often saw him returning when he had had to break the ice at the river's edge.

I looked daily at the Beacons with longing eyes, and on a fine autumn day one of the shoemaker's sons with a friend or two and myself started off to make the ascent. Though less than six miles from us in a straight line, we had to take a rather circuitous course over a range of hills, and then up to the head of a broad valley, which took us within a mile of the summit, making the distance about ten miles. But the day was gloriously fine, the country beautiful, and the view from the top very grand; while the summit itself was so curious as greatly to surprise me, though I did not fully appreciate its very instructive teaching till some years later, after I had ascended many other mountains, had studied Lyell's "Principles of Geology," and had fully grasped the modern views on sub-aerial denudation. As Brecknockshire is comparatively little known, and few English tourists make the

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 precipitous, 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 correspond so closely in direction and amount of slope, that they impress one at once as being really portions of one continuous 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

or twelve miles from north to south; and in every part of it the chief summits are from 2000 to 2500 feet high, while near its western end, about twelve miles from the Beacons, is the second highest summit, Van Voel, reaching 2632 feet. Most of these mountains have rounded summits which are smooth and covered with grassy or sedgy vegetation, but many of them have some craggy slopes or precipices on their northern faces.

Almost the whole of this region is of the Old Red Sandstone formation, which here consists of nearly horizontal strata with a moderate dip to the south; and the whole of the very numerous valleys with generally smooth and gradually sloping sides which everywhere intersect it, must be all due to sub-aerial denudation—that is, to rain, frost, and snow-the débris due to which is carried away by the brooks and rivers. The geologist looks upon the rounded summits of these mountains as indications of an extensive gently undulating plateau, which had been slowly raised above the surface of the lakes or inland seas in which they had been deposited, and subjected to so little disturbance that the strata remain in a nearly horizontal position. When from the summit of any of these higher mountains we look over the wide parallel or radiating valleys with the rounded grassy ridges, and consider that the whole of the material that once filled all these valleys to the level of the mountain-top has been washed away day by day and year by year, by the very same agencies that after heavy rain now render turbid every brooklet, stream, and river, usually so clear and limpid, we obtain an excellent illustration of how nature works in moulding the earth's surface by a process so slow as to be to us almost imperceptible.

This process of denudation is rendered especially clear to us by the singular formation of the twin summits of the Brecon Beacons. Here we are able, as it were, to catch nature at work. Owing to the rare occurrence of a nearly equal rate of denudation in four or five directions around this highest part of the original plateau, we have remaining for our inspection two little triangular patches of the original peatcovered surface joined together by the narrow saddle, as