The comfortable inn, situated near this romantic spot, stands in front of the River Rhyddol, and commanding the most picturesque view fancy can paint, was built by the respectable and truly hospitable owner of Havod. This celebrated Bridge, so much the object of curiosity and admiration, is so completely environed with trees, that many travellers, not intent upon deep investigation, or in pursuit of Nature’s landscapes, may pass over it without the least suspicion of the dreadful aperture, or the ancient structure that conveys them over the gulf. On the eastern side we descended a deep and treacherous bank, consisting of slate rock, or laminac, I should imagine, near an hundred feet: this is the computed measurement; but the eye, confused by the awfulness of the scene, loses its faculty of judging. From this spot the vast chine, or chasm over which the bridge is thrown, is seen to great advantage. The whole of this fissure was probably occasioned by some convulsion of Nature, as each indenture seems to correspond with the opposite protuberance. Under the bridge the river Mynach, in its confined course, meeting with obstructions of massy rock, and fragments of prodigious size, rushes through the chasm with irresistible violence. This bridge is called in Welsh Pont-ar Fynach, or Mynach Bridge; it consists of two arches, one thrown over the other. The foundation of the under one is of great antiquity, and vulgarly attributed to the invention of the Devil; it is supposed to have been erected as far back as the year 1087, in the reign of King William II., by the Monks of Strata Florida Abbey, the ruins of which are still visible, about ten miles from hence. Gerald mentions his passing over it, when he accompanied Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the time of the Crusades, in the year 1188, and in the reign of King Richard I. The original arch being suspected to be in a ruinous condition, the present bridge was built over it, at the expense of the county, in the year 1753. The width of the chasm is estimated at about thirty feet. Our Cicerone first conducted us to a fall on the river Rhyddol, unobserved in Walker’s Description of the Devil’s Bridge, and unnoticed by Warner. The character of this fall is remarkably singular: a huge fragment of rock, projecting over the river for a considerable way, precipitates the water in a singular and almost inexpressible direction: the rocks are occasionally variegated by the dark foliage of underwood, and sometimes barren, rugged, and impending.