Welsh Journals

as public paths by the Parish Council and confirmed by a Parish Meeting. These maps, sent in by Parish Councils to the County Council, will form the basis of the first draft map, the appropriate portion of which must be exhibited in each parish for inspection. The next stage is to be the provincial map, and the third and final stage will be the definitive map. Any path marked as public in this last map will be effectively protected by law from obstruction or closure. It appears likely that some Parish Councils will have been more active and zealous than others in making their parish maps compre- hensive. Members of the Gower Society who live in the area of the Gower Rural District are urged to make a point of attending Parish Meetings called under the provisions of the Act, and to examine care- fully the parish sections of the County Council draft map when it is exhibited. It is to be hoped that the County Council will make use of the maps of footpaths submitted by the Gower Society as it is highly probable that, for some of the parishes, the Society's maps will show more public footpaths than will have been marked on the official map sent in by the Parish Councils. Stephen Lee. FOUR SCENES IN ENGLISH GOWER The old man eased his body down upon a bank of brown fern and rested his back against a wooden post that had patches of moss. He stretched his legs into grass that flattened and then sprang back along the edges. Spring-water was fresh on his tongue. Dust from the roadside settled shamelessly in a light covering on the old man's hat. Seeing long clouds, worried and fretted by a small wind, yellowed by the sun, he let his vision lose itself among them. But he lost it carefully, for he had walked a tired day, looking at stony soil and shiny pieces of earth, and he was glad to rest and let his thoughts grow. He saw the valley beyond Carey's Wood, where the pebbly bed was deep with water. White stones in the sun, brown stones in the shade, lying in water that seemed eager to reflect, showing still and remote beneath the fish. Sleek trout holding themselves in the current, fins vibrating like veined fans, moving with sharp angular flicks that were sudden. Trees and slopes had accepted the stream with harmony, and paths made concordant bands along the crumbled banks. Old tree-trunks lay on their sides, becoming warm in the sunshine, burrowed in and crawled over. Thick bushes and leaves hid the skyline of the slope and the valley was a place of its own nature, Ilston Cwm, a narrow theatre of sound and shadow. He saw the burrows below Crawley, where the sand-grains hissed