The town of Neath neither gives to nor gains from its river much distinction where this moves through its midst, brown, and with tidal mud on its banks. It is a colliery town, pure and simple, surprisingly furnished with public-houses. The fragments of its castle that survive are pent about by dismal slums, so that a man must have a very keen antiquarian sense to discover them. Nor are they much when found: just a gateway with its towers, the whole prettily hugged by ivy. Richard Grenville, of Bideford, who founded it in the twelfth century, would not care to see it now. Hence to the much more grandiose ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary and the Holy Trinity, which also owed its origin to the same Richard Grenville, is a walk of a mile or more--not a rural walk, by any means. You may, if you will, take a tram-car thither, with collier-lads or their womenfolk for your companions, and with black mud on the roadway. The ruins stand close-girt by canals and mines and ironworks. Leland describes the abbey as, in his day, the fairest in Wales; and in the year 1500 its glories, and especially the sweetness of its convent bells, were bardic themes. Never was there so abject a change; and yet, after the Dissolution, when it fell to the lot of Sir Richard Cromwell, nephew of Henry VIII.'s minister and great-grandfather of Oliver, it was for long an appreciated residence. The white stone mullions of the many windows of the parts of the abbey added by Sir P. Hoby, in 1650 or so, still gleam against the dark gritstone of the walls. [Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF NEATH.] In spite of its sordid surroundings, however, Neath Abbey is not despicable. The area of its ruins impresses; the jagged towering ends of the ivied walls of its church, with daws croaking about them, and the long-desolate aisle, tangled with coarse grass and brambles, are also impressive. The ecclesiastics who sleep in Neath Abbey may be said to lie fathoms deep under the accumulated soil. Not a trace of one of them remains above the surface. The dark refectory of their convent, with its pillared roof, stands pretty much as it did in the sixteenth century, and of itself would dignify the ruins. But echo alone feasts in its damp, sombre hall. One remembers that it was here our Edward II. sought shelter after his evasion of Caerphilly Castle, and that it was a Neath monk who betrayed him into that terrible custody of Berkeley Castle, where death awaited him; and, remembering this, one is inclined to be sentimental, and to talk about the curse that broods over the Neath Abbey ruins. In truth, however, smoke is the main brooder here. [Illustration: NORTH DOCK, SWANSEA (_p. 174_).]