We saw in the last chapter that Cardigan is a lonely county, cut off from its neighbours by mountains and hills all the way from Plynlimmon to Lampeter, and by steep slopes, forming the Valley of the Teify, on the Carmarthen side. Hence its position has made it in bygone days “the last refuge of the beaten and the first landing-place of returning exiles.” Its people, because of this fact, are not quite like the rest of their countrymen, but form something like a separate tribe, known to their neighbours as “Cardys.” The men are generally very dark as to eyes, hair, and complexion, with “round heads, thick necks, and sturdy frames.” You remember that Borrow took his guide for an Irishman at first, and in many ways the “Cardy” does resemble his Celtic cousin across the Channel of St. George. But he differs in the fact that he is very industrious and independent, and always on the lookout to better himself. So that, though nearly all the population is composed of small farmers and their labourers, the county is said to produce more teachers, parsons, and preachers than any other in Wales. We have heard something already of the tremendous battles that took place in this region--battles which we can easily account for, since the loneliness of the district made it a favourite refuge for all lost causes. The story of one of these battles, the joy of the Welsh bards in the twelfth century, tell us how North and South Wales joined in 1135 in an attack upon the town of Cardigan, at the mouth of the Teify, then held by ruthless English barons, who advanced beyond the walls upon them. The advantage falling to the Welsh, the English retreated to their castle, but the Welshmen cut the supports of the bridge over the Teify as they crossed it, so that three thousand perished in the river. “The green sea-brine of Teife thickened. The blood of warriors and the waves of ocean swelled its tide. The red-stained sea-mew screamed with joy as it floated on a sea of gore.”[4] [Footnote 4: The quotation is taken from Bradley’s “Highways and Byways of South Wales.”] From Cardigan the River Teify winds through a hilly country to Cenarth, whose castle is the scene of a story all too common in the days when Henry I. was King of England. [Illustration: CARDIGAN BAY] Nest, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the last Prince of Wales who was actually quite independent of English rule, was the fairest maiden in all the land. When her father died, he left her in the charge of Henry I., and the King gave her in marriage to the Norman Gerald, Lord of Pembroke, who had just built this castle at Cenarth as a protection against the hostile Welsh on both sides of the river. There he lived happily with his beautiful wife and children for some years, until Cadogan, Prince of Cardigan, took it into his head to give a great banquet at Cardigan Castle.