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The Welsh people are just the same. The other day we were shown a huge pair of rusty scissors whilst staying in Breconshire. The man who found them took them to the "big house" for the squire to keep as a curiosity, for, "no doubt," he said, "they once belonged to some great king"! To our disgust, on reaching the upper water we found it as thick as pea-soup.
Lloyd says, in a Letter, that he had been inform- by a Friend, that one Stedman of Breconshire, about 30 Years before the Date of his Letter, was on the Coast of America in a Dutch Bottom, and being about to land for refreshment, the Natives kept them off by Force, till at last this Stedman told his fellow Dutch Seamen that he understood what the Natives spoke.
He was a Breconshire peasant, of strong passion which became sanctified by a life-long struggle, of devouring ambition which he nearly succeeded in taming to a life of intense service to God.
The Wysg or Usk has its source among some wild hills in the south-west of Breconshire, and, after absorbing several smaller streams, amongst which is the Hondu, at the mouth of which Brecon stands, which on that account is called in Welsh Aber Hondu, and traversing the whole of Monmouthshire, enters the Bristol Channel near Newport, to which place vessels of considerable burden can ascend.
The Taf, which runs to the south of Merthyr, comes down from Breconshire, and enters the Bristol Channel at Cardiff, a place the name of which in English is the city on the Taf. It is one of the most beautiful of rivers, but is not navigable on account of its numerous shallows. The only service which it renders to commerce is feeding a canal which extends from Merthyr to Cardiff.
Shortly afterwards, passing through Breconshire with his host, he burnt Dafydd's house a fair edifice called the Cyrnigwen, situated on a hillock near the river Honddu to the ground, and seeing one of Gam's dependents gazing mournfully on the smouldering ruins he uttered the following taunting englyn:
If you, my fellow-countrymen, think that I did wrong, I will make no complaint, but will suffer in silence any penalty which you may impose upon me. I am a soldier of fifteen years' standing, a captain in the Second Breconshire Battalion. I have served in the South African Campaign and was mentioned in despatches after the battle of Diamond Hill.
To Machynlleth on the occasion of the parliament came Dafydd Gam, so celebrated in after time; not, however, with the view of entering into the councils of Glendower, or of doing him homage, but of assassinating him. This man, whose surname Gam signifies crooked, was a petty chieftain of Breconshire. He was small of stature and deformed in person, though possessed of great strength.
They could not sleep while the fairies were having their parties. Now among the Welsh fairies of every sort, size, dress, and behavior, some were good, others were bad, but most of them were only full of fun and mischief. Chief of these was the lively little fellow, Puck, who lived in Cwm Pwcca, that is, Puck Valley, in Breconshire.
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