The transcript enables us to make a correction in the Itinerary as given
in the _Life_. Borrow is there said to have walked, on Sept. 3rd, from
Lampeter to Builth. This should read “Lampeter to Llanddewi Brefi.”
Where he slept on the night of Sept. 4th we are unfortunately left to
conjecture, for it is just here that Dr. Knapp was overcome by the
difficulties of transcription and by want of access to large-scale maps,
as he admits in his letter. We may, however, hazard a guess that, unless
Borrow got hopelessly out of his way, he slept on the 4th at Abergwessin,
about half-way between Llanddewi Brefi and Builth. On the 5th he reached
Builth, and on the 6th he accomplished a matter of twenty-eight miles
from Builth to Mortimer’s Cross (alluded to in chap. 36 of _Wild
Wales_)—not a bad day for a man of fifty-four! Beyond this point,
however, all we know is that on the 17th he was at Shrewsbury, and on
Oct. 5th at Leighton, Uppington and Donnington (all in the neighbourhood
of the county town) looking up traces of Goronwy Owen.
And so we leave him. Some day, perhaps, some enthusiast will publish a
transcript of the remainder of Borrow’s Note Book of 1857, and also,
perhaps, that of 1867, when we may have a further opportunity of
following still more closely the tracks of Lavengro across the heart of
wildest Wales.
Footnotes.
{160a} “Life, Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow”, by W. I.
Knapp, 1899, vol. ii, pp. 184–5.
{160b} Shortly before his death, Dr. Knapp, in a letter (27 Aug. 1908)
to the Secretary of the Gypsy Lore Society, thus alluded to this
correspondence:—“I have just sent off a bulky parcel that cost me _three
weeks_ to write, containing the transcription of one of Borrow’s Note
Books of 1857.” See _Journal_, _Gypsy Lore Soc._, New Series, vol. ii,
(Jan. 1909), p. 196.
{162} _Life_; vol. ii, p. 381,
{163a} It is difficult to locate the Inn at Laugharne, but from the
numerous enquiries we made, it is possible it was the house kept by a
Mrs. Brown, and still known as Brown’s Hotel.
{163b} The bridge and wooded dell. The latter divides the town into two
halves.
{163c} Plashett.
{163d} Dene or Dean.—Borrow was doubtless well acquainted with this word
in the place-names North Denes and South Denes, at Yarmouth, where the
term is applied to the sandy waste flats north and south of the town.
{163e} Llanmiloe, the residence of Mr. Morgan Jones.
{163f} The Spring Well Inn, kept in 1857 by a man named Saer.
{164a} Possibly a man named Phillips, a native of Saundersfoot.
{164b} The original Pendine, grouped about the church. The houses near
the shore are probably later additions, in part due to the attractions of
Pendine as a summer-resort.
{164c} Mr. Morgan’s other parish was Cyffic, near Whitland.
{164d} Borrow undoubtedly included the Island of Caldy as one of the
headlands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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