The narrow stripe of meadow-land that accompanies the Wye from Brook’s Weir to Monmouth, and in which our road lay, now became frequently shut up from public convenience by fences crossing the tract, and styles, in the place of open gates, which the farmers had lately erected. We were therefore obliged to climb up the forest-clothed hills, of almost inaccessible steepness, driving our horses before us, and scrambling through bush and briar; and only regained the meadows to encounter a succeeding difficulty of the same kind. But our last was the greatest; for, pursuing a track broken through a closely-woven thicket that led over the hills, we neglected a doubtful opening in the brambles that indicated our road, and only guessed that we were wrong from the tedious height we were climbing. We had, however, gone too far to retreat; and therefore hoped, in the true spirit of error, as we had certainly missed the right path, that by proceeding boldly on we might extricate ourselves by another. At length we reached the top of the hill, and with no small disappointment beheld our track terminate at a lonely farm-house; where no one appeared to give us information; nor was any road whatever viable for the pursuit of our journey. Yet the view that this eminence commanded over the sinuous Wye, sweeping among sloping meadows, woods, and precipices, in some sort repaid our fatigue. Obliged to return, we forced a passage through tangled underwood to the margin of the river, which here forming an extensive reach between deep shelving banks, was thrown into one grand shadow. The evening was drawing to a close; and the retiring sun, no longer wantoning on the wavy current, sparingly glittered on the woody treasures of its marginal heights, but glared in full splendour on the distant hills; nor was a brilliant sky wanting to contrast the _sombre_ solemnity of our vale: “The evening clouds, Lucid or dusk with flamy purple edg’d, Float in gay pomp the blue horizon round; Amusive, changeful, shifting into shapes Of visionary beauty; antique towers With shadowy domes and pinnacles adorn’d; Or hills of white extent, that rise and sink As sportive fancy lists.” [Picture: View on the Wye] In this shady silent retreat we passed about a mile, and emerged on the village of REDBROOK, where several groupes employed in some iron and tin works, and in plying a ferry, gave animation to the scene. From this place, following a bold curve of the river, and skirting the base of the lofty Kymin, we soon came within view of Monmouth; the remarkably high spire of its church; and the large old Mansion of Troy, in a low situation, a small distance to the left, near the junction of the Trothy with the Wye. CHAP. XVIII. MONMOUTH—CHURCH, PRIORY, AND CASTLE—THE KYMIN—WONASTOW-HOUSE—TREOWEN—TROY-HOUSE—TRELECH—PERTHIR—NEWCASTLE— SCRENFRITH CASTLE—GROSSMONT CASTLE—JOHN OF KENT.