Midway between Ross and Monmouth stands Goodrich Castle, grandly seated upon a steep, heavily-wooded hill--a castle built so long ago that the memory of its beginning is lost, in the haze of ancient days. During the Civil War it was besieged and at length successfully stormed by the Roundheads, in 1646. It is in form a parallelogram, having a tower at each angle, and a keep in the south-west part of the enclosure; and, viewed from the Wye, it is a splendid ruin, trees that cling to the face of the cliffs heightening the effect of the picture. The Wye, flowing swiftly, soon sweeps one's boat round its many bends, until the district known as the Forest of Dean is reached, lying between the Wye and the Severn. Striking scenes of stream and forest-clad cliffs, of castles and courts, of abbeys haunted by memories of events rich in historical interest, now follow one another as rapidly as changes in a kaleidoscope. Courtfield claims the honour of being the place where Henry V. was nursed; and there is a cradle to substantiate the claim. After passing Mailscot Wood, the river forms itself into a loop like an elongated horseshoe. On one side of the narrow neck of land are the famous Coldwell Rocks, the beginning of the great limestone cliffs that, onward to the sea, hem in the stream, and carry on their rugged sides clinging woods and ivy. Rains and storms have beaten these Coldwell Rocks into fantastic shapes, until to the traveller who first sets eyes upon them they seem to be castles cut out of stone by a race of mighty giants. "Castles and towers, amphitheatres and fortifications, battlements and obelisks, mock the wanderer, who fancies himself transported into the ruins of a city of some extinct race."[8] [Illustration: TINTERN ABBEY, FROM THE WYE (_p. 145_).]