We left these sulphureous chambers to enjoy a purer air on the sea-shore, where another curiosity awaited us. As we were strolling on the sands, about a mile above the town, we remarked a group of figures, in birth-day attire, gamboling in the water: not suspecting that they were women, we passed carelessly on; but how great was our surprize, on approaching them, to find that the fact did not admit of a doubt. We had not paused a minute, before they all came running toward us, with a menacing tone and countenance, that would seem to order us away. Though we did not understand their British sentences, we obeyed, and very hastily too, on finding a volley of stones rattling about our ears. This hostile demonstration, we afterwards found, arose from a suspicion that we were going to remove their clothes, a piece of waggery often practised by the visitants of Swansea, to enjoy their running _nudiores ovo_. The girls knew that we were not their countrymen, or we should have passed unconcerned; unless, indeed, acquaintances, who would have made their usual salutation, and perhaps joined in the party’s amusement. In our subsequent rambles on the beach these liberal exhibitions of Cambrian beauty afforded us many pleasing studies of unsophisticated nature: “Graceful, cleanly, smooth and round; All in Venus’ girdle bound.” From Swansea we made an excursion across the sands to Ostermouth castle, about four miles distant, situated on an eminence near the coast. The principal walls of this ruin are little injured by time, and most of the apartments may be readily distinguished; the general figure is polygonal, and the ramparts are conspicuously lofty, but unflanked by towers, except at the entrance: a profusion of ivy overspreading the ruin rather conceals than adorns it. This building is supposed to have been erected by the Norman conqueror of Gowerland, and has almost ever since remained the property of that Lordship.