Let us add that it has not, in its prosperity, come to feel ashamed of its Shaky Bridge--a primitive arrangement of planks and stretched ropes, which will some day, it is to be feared, be displaced by a more "imposing" structure. [Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._ THE SHAKY BRIDGE, LLANDRINDOD.] Builth, on the Wye, is a fisherman's paradise. Using the little town as a base, he has within easy reach the waters of the Wye, the Yrfon, the Edw, the Dihonw, and the Chweffru, all waters rich in sporting fish; and in the seasons of the sport about as many artificial as natural flies skim the waters, for anglers come from far and near to a centre so celebrated. The authentic history of Builth reaches back to Roman times; and in later days the Danes came with fire and sword, and levelled the place with the ground. The Castle of Builth was stormed and destroyed as often as it was rebuilt, the partisans of one chief after another wreaking their rage upon it, and now nothing but a mound marks the spot where once a succession of strongholds stood. History has no more romantic tale to tell, nor one that is more generally known, than that of the ride of the Prince of Wales, Llewelyn, from Aberedw, where on the banks of the Wye he had a castle, towards Builth, which refused to succour him. There is scarce an elementary schoolboy who has not heard of the ingenious blacksmith who hastily nailed to the hoofs of Llewelyn's horse the shoes reversed, so that the tracks in the snow might mislead those who were in hot pursuit; and alas! heard, too, that the blacksmith, clever as he was at his trade, was not clever enough to keep the secret, but betrayed his prince to the enemy, so that the last authentic Prince of Wales was hounded to his death. It is a story destined to immortality, for it has drifted into folklore, and, like the curiously barbarous tale of Little Red Riding Hood, is crooned to each generation of children until every Welsh child dreams at least once in its lifetime of the harried prince and the foaming steed, the new-fallen snow, and the marks of the seven-nailed shoes running, as it were, backwards. The tale has been transplanted to many quarters of the globe, but the Wye knows that the prince fled along its banks from the castle to the cruel, inhospitable town. Of the castle--Llewelyn's--to be sure, almost nothing now remains; but the village is delightfully situated, and is much resorted to by anglers, and not by anglers only. The next place of particular importance is Hay. From the river the streets of this picturesque and thriving little town rise rather too abruptly for the pleasurable convenience of vehicular traffic; but picturesqueness and practicability seldom go hand in hand, and what Hay streets lack in the latter is fully made up in the former virtue. To crown them rises the ivy-clad fragments of the famous castle. [Illustration: _Photo: J. Thirlwall, Hereford._ THE WYE BRIDGE AND HEREFORD CATHEDRAL (_p. 134_).]