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their slopes feeds countless flocks of sheep,-a breed famous both for fine wool and good mutton. The highest point is Cleeve Cloud, near Cheltenham (about 1000 feet high), by which the old Roman Ermine Street passes on its way north from Cirencester. Cirencester was the chief town in the west country in Roman days, and here four great roads met.

Carpets are manufactured in Cirencester, and, to the west of this town, in pretty vales, surrounded by hills, and watered by streams which flow into the Severn, are the towns where the famous west-country broadcloth is made. Stroud is the chief of these; and there are long white mills by dark-coloured streams in many of the neighbouring towns and villages-Minchinhampton, Stonehouse, and others. The finest broadcloth is made in this county, in Wilts, and Somerset.

The most notable thing about the Cotswolds is that they have the honour of giving birth to the Thames.

*About three miles from Cheltenham two brooks rise-one from several openings at a spot called the Seven Springs. The spot is a lovely dell, overhung with trees, at the foot of Leckhampton Hill. "Here," says the woman who shows the place, "be the springs from which comes the great river Thames, which is called Isis till it gets past Oxford. Here they be, seven of 'em, one, two, three, four, &c. And they never run less in the driest summer, and never are frozen in winter. How thankful ought us to be for such a plenty of good water!" It gushes freely out of the rock, clear and pure as crystal, cool and grateful to the summer rambler. After a few whirls, it starts upon its course, as if impatient to reach the objects in its

*From 'The British Islands,' J. Milner, M.A.

path. In about a mile, the brook from Seven Springs is joined by another from Ullen Farm, and the two together make the small river Churn. It flows to Cricklade, twenty miles off, where the Isis, or Thames, from Wiltshire is met. Four feeders of the Thames, the Evenlode, Windrush, Leach, and Colne, also rise in the Cotswolds.

With the exception of Windsor Forest and the New Forest, Dean Forest is the largest in England; oak and beech are grown here for the dockyards. It is a mining country; a coal-field stretches right under the forest, and iron is found with the coal. Lydney and Coleford are busy coal and iron towns.

Map Questions.

1. What is the lower valley of the Severn called? What city stands upon the river? What great port is upon the estuary where it is joined by the Lower Avon? What important town joins this port?

2. Name the forest which lies to the west of the river. Two towns in this mining district.

3. What hill range fills the east of the county? Name four considerable towns among the hills. The highest point is to the north of Cheltenham; name it. In what hill are the seven springs in which the Thames rises? What tributaries of the Thames rise in the Cotswolds?

4. State what counties the Severn flows through from its source to its mouth.

5. The town which stands where the river enters Gloucester was the scene of a battle; name it and give the date.

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HEREFORDSHIRE AND MONMOUTHSHIRE.

I.

HEREFORDSHIRE and Monmouthshire are the two last counties on the Welsh "". Marches," where the ruins of many stern old Norman keeps tell of lands taken and held by the sword..

Herefordshire is quite English in every way; but Welsh is still spoken in the west and north of Monmouth, and the outlandish names on the map have been given, not by the Saxons, or English, but by the Britons, or Welsh. Many of these names begin with Llan, the Welsh word for church; perhaps in the days of early British Christianity there was a church in each such place. Other names begin with Aber, river mouth. Hard though as many of the names to pronounce, they usually have a meaning which describes the place.

are

When the Normans came, they built castles up and down Hereford; and in Monmouth, the ruins of not fewer than five-and-twenty of these Norman keeps are still to be seen. Monmouth was in those days really a Welsh county, and each Norman baron had only what land he was able to take for himself and guard from his own castle. In no other part of England are there the remains of so many old keeps as between the fair sister rivers, Usk and Wye.

Some people say the Usk, some say the Wye, is the prettier of these two lovely rivers, which both unite their waters with those of the Severn in the

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Bristol Channel. They flow side by side through Monmouth; and between them is ten or twelve miles of country, fair and fertile as a garden, with apple orchards and corn-fields, pear orchards and deep green meadows, with woods and hills and little vales, watered by many streams which join the Usk on the one side or the Wye on the other.

The Wye belongs equally to both counties; it rises in Plinlimmon, close by the Severn, and into the Severn mouth it flows; but the Severn takes a grander sweep than the modest Wye. The Wye enters Herefordshire out of Wales, and flows across the county to the city of Hereford, through a wide and lovely valley. The city itself is pleasantly placed, and the beautiful cathedral stands by the river. Many notable events have taken place in this old city; among the rest, here—along with many others of Queen Margaret's friends-was beheaded Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman who had married "Kate," the widow of Henry V., and who was the ancestor of our great Tudor kings and queens. He was among the prisoners taken by the Yorkists at Mortimer's Cross, where one of the great battles of the "Roses" was fought; the Queen's party was defeated. A pillar marks the battle-field, which is about six miles from Leominster. After the Wye leaves Hereford, it goes in and out and round about, but does at last make its way southward to Ross, on the Gloucester border. Between the towns of Ross and Monmouth is perhaps the most beautiful bit of river valley in England, where the Wye, overhung by trees, makes endless loops and windings round great masses of rock.

It is not only Wye Valley which is thus beautiful and fertile; there is scarcely any waste land in the whole county. Stand on level ground, and you think