A short half-hour later we find ourselves pacing the single 'street' of Eglwys-Erw, a picturesque village said to derive its name from the church having been built upon a plot of land measuring an acre. Fenton, on the other hand, attributes the origin of the name to a certain St. Erw, whose chapel, containing the tomb of the patron saint, used to stand in a corner of the churchyard. In olden times the peasant folk were averse to being buried in this chapel, owing to the prevalent superstition that their bodies were liable to be mysteriously ejected at dead of night, because, forsooth, St. Erw would brook no bedfellow! Passing on between the neat, whitewashed cottages, we come to Sergeants' Inn, whose bow-windowed front stands near the upper end of the village. The somewhat unusual title of this hostelry is derived from the fact that, in earlier days, it was customary for the gentlemen of the Bar when 'on circuit' to foregather here; and the building next the inn is still called the Sessions House. At Sergeants' Inn is to be seen a small chest-lid, incised with the rather enigmatical legend: I.H.S, PRESTAT EZZE PROMETHEVS QUAM EPIMETHEUM, 1603. Eglwys-Erw Church is soon disposed of; for it has been completely modernized, and bereft of any noteworthy features it may formerly have contained. We now approach the confines of the parish of Eglwys-wen, or Whitechurch; a parish where adders are commonly reputed to be, like snakes in Iceland, absolutely unknown. There is a curious tradition anent the yokels of Whitechurch parish. Says our trusty friend George Owen, 'In ancient times in this parish the Meanest and simplest Sort of people, yea the plain ploughmen, were Skillful at chess play; they never being dwelling out of their Parish, but unlitterate, and brought up at the plough and Harrow altogether.' One would be curious to learn how it came to pass that these simple folk, dwelling in this remote Welsh parish, acquired such an unlooked-for reputation. But the day is waxing old, and it is still a far cry to our night's bivouac at Newport. So, putting the best foot foremost, we speed along the highroad for a couple of miles or so, until, near a huge old earthwork ycleped Castell Mawr, we diverge to the left, cross a pretty streamlet, and get a direction from a passer-by to the famous cromlech at Pentre-Evan. [Illustration: PENTRE EVAN.] Standing in an open field, on the northern slope of the strange-looking hill called Carnedd Meibion Owen, this wonderful structure is undoubtedly the finest cromlech to be found in the Principality.