From some high hills behind Ostermouth, an extensive view is obtained over the peninsula of Gower, and the two noble bays of Swansea and Caermarthen, which its projection divides: the general aspect of the peninsula is wild and dreary. Not far distant, near the little bay of Oxwich, are the ruins of Pennarth castle, a fortress built soon after the Beaumonts conquered Gowerland; and on the opposite side of the bay stands the more picturesque ruin of Penrice castle; so called after the Penrice’s, a Norman family that settled there in the reign of Edward the First. This castle is comprised in an extensive domain belonging to Mr. Talbot, which occupies a great part of the peninsula; and here Mr. Talbot has erected an elegant villa, with all the appendant beauties of wood and lawn, lake, and promenade. But, unless with a view to improve the estate, one can scarcely imagine what motive could induce this gentleman to desert his former residence at Margam, possessing all the allurements of favoured nature, and situated in the midst of an agreeable neighbourhood, to force exotic elegance upon a bleak unfrequented coast, and fix his abode far from the usual haunts of society. About three miles northward of Penrice, upon a mountain called Cum Bryn, near Llanridian, is a table-like monument, or cromlech, {29} called Arthur’s stone: it consists of a huge flat stone, supposed to weigh near twenty tons, supported upon six or seven others about five feet in height; the smaller stones are placed in a circle.—A few miles farther, near the mouth of the Loughor, is Webley castle, which was described to me as a place of considerable antique strength, and as being still entire and partially inhabited. The difficulty of access to this castle, and its out-of-the-way situation, prevented our visiting it; similar reasons also prevented our seeing a curiosity at Wormshead point, a bold promontory jutting far into the sea, and divided from the main land at high-water by the sea’s overflowing its low isthmus. Near the extremity of the point is a cleft in the ground, in which if dust or sand be thrown, it will be returned back into the air; and a person applying his ear to the crevice will hear a deep noise, like the blowing of a large pair of bellows: this effect is reasonably attributed to the concussions of the waves of the sea in the cavernous hollows of the cliff. An old author, I think Giraldus Cambrensis, speaks of a similar phenomenon in Barry island, near the coast between Cardiff and Cowbridge; but at present no such effect is produced at that place. CHAP. II. LOUGHOR—LLANELLY—PEMBREE-HILL—KIDWELLY, AND ITS CASTLE.