its vistas of hill and river, as far as Llyswen, where we crossed the
hills to Brecon. Our stop here was short, as our route was to bring us
again to this interesting old town in a few days. We did not often find
a more delightful road than that down the Usk Valley to Crickhowell,
Abergavenny and Caerleon. Its excellent surface and long sweeping
grades might be a temptation to speed, but it is quite neutralized by
the constant beauty of the scenery and interest of the country. On
either hand are the low Welsh mountains, wooded to the very crest,
and at times far below we caught the gleam of the river--though so
shrunken as to scarcely deserve the name--leaping and flashing over its
stone-strewn bed. Here and there a quiet village nestled unobtrusively
by the roadside; at Crickhowell we found a larger but somnolent
town whose huge church is crowded with memorials of the old Welsh
warriors. Even larger and more impressive is the great Priory Church at
Abergavenny, whose square battlemented tower one might think had been
built to withstand the sieges of the devil, even as the Welsh castles
were made almost impregnable against the attack of man. No quainter
town did we pass than Usk; it must have been much the same when the
Conqueror sent his legions to overawe the Welsh tribes, save that its
castle, then no doubt a lordly fortress, is now a decayed ivy-mantled
ruin. Its greater importance in years gone by is attested by its
mighty priory church, ill in keeping with the hamlet that clusters
about it today. According to tradition, two kings of England were born
in Usk--Richard III. and Edward IV.--and Roman remains indicate an
important station on the spot almost at the dawn of the Christian Era.
But what shall one say of Caerleon, farther down the valley, now
practically a suburb of Newport, where dim legends still linger to the
effect that it was once King Arthur's capital and that here was the
castle
"From whose high towers they say
Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,
And white sails flying o'er a yellow sea."
A prosaic historian, however, declares that in all likelihood the King
Arthur legend sprang from Roman ruins which some hundreds of years
ago existed in Caerleon in great magnificence. At any rate, modern
Caerleon has no trace of the regal capital of the early king--a bald,
unattractive town close upon the Usk, now broadened into a considerable
stream, dull with the taint from the manufactories on its banks.
At Newport we are entering a different order of things, brought about
by the great industrial development in South Wales due to the coal
and iron mines and large shipping interests. In the last century the
population of the town has grown from one to seventy thousand. The old
order is indeed dead here. There is no effort to attract the tourist,
and the castle, almost the sole relic of antiquity, is crumbling
into unhindered ruin as it sits far above the drear expanse of mud
left by the receding tide. We hasten through the town--we may see a
hundred such at home--and seek from a friendly policeman the road to
Caerphilly, a village off in the hills which we know has no new-world
counterpart.
For ten miles from Newport we wend our way over a dusty, ill-kept
byroad with sharp turns and steep grades, and before we come to the
village we see from some distance the broken towers and battlements
of Caerphilly Castle. We pass through the gateway in the straggling
walls and the scene of desolation and massive ruin that lies before us
is hardly paralleled in impressiveness among British castles, unless
it be by Corfe in Dorset. A great round tower, perhaps fifty feet in
diameter, with walls ten feet thick, split as by a thunder stroke,
greets our eyes. Half of it is still standing, though leaning many
feet from the vertical, and the other half lies in mighty fragments of
masonry at its base. There had been four such towers, but only one is
comparatively entire. The walls, though much shattered in places, still
serve to give an idea of the vast extent of the ancient castle. The
huge banqueting hall has been roofed and recalls in a rather pathetic
way the rude magnificence of its feudal state.
[Illustration: CAERPHILLY CASTLE, SOUTH WALES.]
But words quite fail to describe Caerphilly--such a maze of grim walls
and towers, such a network of ruinous apartments, piled deep with
debris, overawe and confuse one. Only the antiquarian may painfully
decipher the plan of the castle and in imagination reconstruct it as
it was when it stood a bulwark between warring nations. But to the
ordinary beholder it will remain a mystery set in the midst of the
barren hills, and he will hardly care to resolve the impressive pile
into its original parts. It will seem an entity to him--it is hard
to think it otherwise than it appears today. Its romance is deepened
by the obscurity of its history--for the story of Caerphilly has many
blanks and breaks. There is no record of when it was first begun and
there is doubt as to when it was finally destroyed. Some say the ruin
is the work of Cromwell, and it surely seems worthy of that master of
the art of wrecking castles; others declare that it was abandoned at
the time of the Commonwealth, having been destroyed by Shakespeare's
"Wild irregular Glendower," in his endless conflicts with the English.
But after all, does it not savor even more of romance that mystery
enshrouds the past of the stupendous structure whose scanty remnants
encircle us? Why call upon prosaic history to dispel the charm that
emanates from the gray ruin, half hidden by its mantle of ivy and
dashed here and there with the purple valerian and yellow wall-flower?
Such would be folly indeed as we sit on the soft green turf of the
court and contemplate the fantastic outlines in the glow of the sunset;
when all is silence save for the angry brawls of the rooks, which have
entered into full possession--reincarnations, perhaps, of the erstwhile
contentious owners.
But the spell of Caerphilly dissolves and a different world surrounds
us as we enter the broad modern streets of Cardiff and pause before
the American-looking Park Hotel. Cardiff as a village antedates the
Conquest, but as a metropolis of two hundred thousand, it is quite
recent. One hundred years ago it had a population of a thousand;
in 1837, of ten thousand; and it is easy to see that the traces of
antiquity in such a city must be few. Its future was assured when the
first Marquis of Bute hazarded his entire fortune in the construction
of the extensive docks from which shipments of coal and iron are now
made. It was a lucky throw of the die for the nobleman, for today his
grandson owns the greater part of Cardiff and is one of the wealthiest
men in the Kingdom.
Cardiff Castle--forever associated with the dark fate of Prince
Robert--has been replaced by a Moorish palace--or rather, an
incongruous mixture in which the Moorish predominates. It is easy to
gain admittance to this imposing palace, where art has been entirely
unhampered by cost, and if garishness and incongruity sometimes
prevail, interest is nevertheless continual. There is a fragment of
the keep of the old castle in the grounds and Duke Robert's dungeon is
incorporated into the new structure--a dark, vaultlike cavity in the
walls where for thirty years the unfortunate prince, the direct heir to
the throne of the Conqueror, was kept a close prisoner by his brother
Henry. Legend has it that his eyes were put out because of an
attempt to escape and that he died in the dungeon at the age of eighty
years.
[Illustration: CARDIFF CASTLE.]
Cardiff's municipal buildings are a delight; white stone palaces
standing in ample grounds with wide pleasant approaches--altogether
models of what civic structures ought to be. Immense and busy as it is,
there is little in Cardiff to detain one on such a pilgrimage as ours,
and we were away before noon on the Swansea road.
Llandaff is but three miles from Cardiff, and we reached it by a
short detour. Its cathedral, recently restored, is probably the most
interesting of Welsh churches excepting St. David's. The site has
been occupied by a church ever since the year 600, though the present
structure dates from early Norman times. It fell into complete ruin
after the time of the Commonwealth. One chronicler declares that
"Cromwell's men turned the nave into an ale house, penned calves in
the choir and fed pigs at the font," though they must have been rather
unorthodox Puritans to countenance the ale house. No attempt was made
to preserve the fine church from decay until about two hundred years
later, and so deplorable was its condition that the task of restoration
seemed a well-nigh impossible one. Still, after much difficulty, the
work was happily carried out, and the twin towers--one a slender spire
and its companion square-topped with Gothic finials--present a very
unusual though not unpleasant effect. Inside there is a mixture of
Norman and early English styles, and some beautiful Decorated work.
There are three paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that arrest
attention at once--done in that artist's best style long ere he was
known to fame. The windows, though modern, are of unusual excellence,
having been designed by Burne-Jones and other notable artists. Near by
are the ruins of the bishop's palace, whose fortresslike walls tell
of a time when the churchman and the warrior went hand in hand. Its
destruction some six hundred years ago is attributed to Owen Glendwr,
whose record for castle-smashing in Wales is second only to that of
Cromwell. The village of Llandaff is still rural and pretty; it is
quite clear of the skirts of Cardiff, being separated from the city by
the River Taff. The old stone cross still stands in front of the palace
and there is now little to remind one of the big modern city near at
hand, which may one day absorb its ancient but diminutive neighbor.
The Swansea road looks well enough on the map, but our recollections
of it are far from pleasing. Dusty and rough, and crowded with traffic
and tram lines in many places, it wends through a cheerless and often
uninteresting country. It passes frequent mining towns straggling along
for considerable distances and there were many drunken men reeling
on the streets. It was market day at Cowbridge and the village was
filled with countrymen, many of whom treated our right to the road with
supreme indifference. One fellow in a broad-brimmed slouch hat that
made him look like an American cowboy, and who was carrying a black
bottle that might hold a gallon, saluted us with owl-like gravity and
brought the car to a sharp stop by standing directly in our way.
While getting rid of our would-be acquaintance, we cast about to find a
place for luncheon and soon lighted on the sign of the Bear, the sole
inn, according to Baedeker. It was some distance to the next town and
we decided to patronize the Bear, though its outer appearance filled us
with misgivings. But if its outward aspect inspired doubt, words fail
in speaking of the inside. The handbook of the Royal Automobile Club in
setting forth the delights of a tour in America pays its compliments to
our rural Bonifaces in this wise: "The hotel accommodation in country
districts is often very poor and dirty," all of which may be painfully
true. But in competition for distinction in these particulars, the
Bear would certainly not be distanced by any American rival. Perhaps
the confusion and disarray was partly due to the market-day rush, but
the grime and dirt that prevailed everywhere seemed as ancient as the
ramshackle old house itself. The dining-room was a large apartment with
many long tables of boards laid on trestles--an arrangement, no doubt,
to accommodate the patronage of market day--and the remnants of the
dinner were still heaped upon them in dire confusion. A glance at the
meal placed before us and at the dirty hands of the waiting-girl was
enough--we left the provender untouched and summarily departed from the
table. With difficulty we got the attention of the barmaid, who also
acted as cashier, settled our score, and sallied forth dinnerless upon
the King's highway.
Threading our way carefully through the streets of Neath, several
miles farther on, with little thought save to get away from the bad
road and unpleasant surroundings, we caught a glimpse, down a side
street, of an ivy-clad ruin of great extent. We followed the rough
rubbish-covered lane that leads directly to the entrance gate of Neath
Abbey, as it proved to be. There was no caretaker in charge, but two
or three workmen were engaged in cleaning away the debris, which was
several feet deep in many of the roofless apartments. Everything
indicated that once the abbey had stood in the pleasantest of valleys
on the bank of a clear, placid little river; but the coaling industry,
which flings its pall over everything in Southern Wales, had played
sad havoc with the sylvan retreat of the old Cistercian monks. Heaps
of rubbish dotted the uncared-for green about the place. Coal trains
rattled on the railroad near at hand. The spot where the abbey now
stands so forlornly is the heart of the suburban slums of Neath, and
so isolated and forgotten is it that few pilgrims come to view its
melancholy beauty. For it is beautiful--does not our picture tell
the story?--the mouldering walls hung with masses of ivy, the fine
doorways, the great groups of mullioned windows and the high chimneys,
green to the very tops, all combine to charm the beholder despite the
unlovely surroundings. The workmen told us that the abbey belonged to
Lord Somebody--we have quite forgotten--and that he was going to clean
up the premises and make necessary repairs. The craze now so prevalent
in Britain for preserving every ancient ruin had extended even to Neath
Abbey and perchance its titled owner will beautify the surroundings and
the fine ruin may yet become a shrine for pilgrims--that the motor-car
will bring.
[Illustration: NEATH ABBEY, SOUTH WALES.]
Swansea--Swansy, they call it--had always brought to my mind, I hardly
know why, the idea of a seaside resort town; but never was preconceived
notion more erroneous. If there is a blacker, uglier, more odoriferous
town of the size in the Kingdom, I do not recollect where it is. Here
are the greatest copper smelting works in the world and from these
come the pungent, stifling odors that so unpleasantly pervade the
city. Here, too, is the great steel plant of the Siemens Company and
many allied industries. And yet there was a time when Swansea had at
least the promise of a resort town before it, when the poet Landor
declared that "Italy has a fine climate but that of Swansea is better;
that it is the only spot in Britain where one may have warmth without
wet." Then it had six hundred people, but now its population exceeds
one hundred thousand. We had no desire to linger and rapidly climbed
the long steep hill that leads to the highland road to Carmarthen.
We soon left behind us the smoke and grime of the collieries and
smelting-works, and the road over which we rapidly coursed took us
through a rather pretty rural section, though the hills are numerous
and steep.
It was late when we came into Carmarthen, a bare, drab-colored town,
but withal rather more prosperous-looking than the average small
town of South Wales. The thirty-two miles to Haverfordwest swept by
too rapidly to permit us to see the country other than as a fleeting
panorama. Just as the twilight faded into dark we came sharply into
Haverfordwest and with grave misgivings halted at the Castle Hotel.
Here we must stop, willy nilly, for there was nothing that promised
better in many miles. But to apply the cautious Yorkshireman's
expression to the Castle Hotel, "It might be worse," and we were
willing to let the uncomfortable feather-beds and the dingy candle-lit
rooms overlooking the stable yard, be atoned for by the excellent
dinner that our landlady prepared at so late an hour.
We did not linger at Haverfordwest on the following morning, though
perhaps the castle and the priory church might well have detained us.
The castle, which crowns the terribly steep hill to which the town
seems to cling somewhat precariously, has been reduced to a county
jail--or gaol, as the English have it--and thus robbed of much of
its romance. Still, it is an impressive old fortress, dominating the
town with its huge bulk, and it has figured much in the annals of
Pembrokeshire.
Haverfordwest has a history antedating the Conquest. It was undoubtedly
a stopping-place for the troops of pilgrims who in early days journeyed
to the sacred shrine of St. David's, the Ultima Thule of Southern
Wales, sixteen miles to the west, following a tortuous road over many
steep and barren hills. The railroad ends at Haverfordwest and no doubt
the facilities for reaching St. David's a thousand years ago were quite
as good as today, the daily mail cart and coach twice a week in season
being the only regular means of transportation. No wonder in days when
strenuous journeys to distant shrines were believed to be especially
meritorious, two trips to St. David's were allowed to confer the
spiritual benefit of a single pilgrimage to Rome itself.
And we ourselves are pilgrims to St. David's shrine--not by the slow
horseback cavalcade of old days, or the more modern coach, but by
motor car. Our forty-horse engine makes quick work of the precipitous
hill out of Haverfordwest and carries us without lagging over the
dozen long steep hills on the road to the ancient town. Shortly before
reaching St. David's the road drops down to the ocean side, but the
sea is hidden by a long ridge of stones and pebbles piled high by the
inrushing waters. The tide was far out and we saw no finer beach on the
Welsh coast than the one that lay before us as we stood on the stony
drift. A great expanse of yellow--almost literally golden--sand ran
down to a pale green sea, which lapped it in silvery sunlit ripples,
so quiet and peaceful was the day. But one could not but think of the
scope afforded for the wild play of the ocean on stormy days--how the
scene must be beyond all description
"When the great winds shoreward blow,
And the salt tides seaward flow;
Where the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray."
We left the car near the ancient stone cross in the deserted market
place of St. David's and sought the cathedral, which is strangely
situated in a deep dell, the top of the Norman tower being only a
little above the level of the market place. The cathedral has been
recently restored, more perhaps on account of its historic past than
any present need for it, but the bishop's palace, once one of the most
elaborate and extensive in the Kingdom, stands in picturesque decay,
beyond any hope of rehabilitation. As to the old-time importance of
St. David's as contrasted with its present isolation, the words of an
enthusiastic English writer may perhaps serve better than my own:
"Centuries ago St. David's bishop had seven palaces for his pleasure;
now he does not dwell in his own city. Of old the offerings at St.
David's shrine were divided every Saturday among the priests by the
dishful, to save time in counting the coins; now a few pounds weekly is
accounted a good collection total. Ancient kings came hither in state
to confess their sins; in this travelling age only the enterprising
tourist comes to the city at all. Eight or nine roads converged upon
the little place on its headland of about three miles square, but the
majority are now no better than humble weather-worn lanes. The Atlantic
winds sweep across the depression by the Alan brook in which St.
David's Cathedral, the extensive ruins of the bishop's palace, and the
many other fragments of St. David's glorious prime nestle among trees,
with the humble cottages of the city itself surrounding them as if they
loved them. Even the dilapidation here is so graceful that one would
hardly wish it altered into the trim and rather smug completeness of
many an English cathedral with its close."
The cathedral is extremely interesting and made doubly so by an
intelligent verger whom we located with considerable difficulty.
Pilgrims to St. David's were apparently too infrequent to justify the
good man's remaining constantly on duty as in larger places, and a
placard forbidding fees, may have dampened his zeal in looking for
visitors. But we found him at last in his garden, and he did his part
well; nothing curious or important in the history of the cathedral was
forgotten by him. The leaning Norman pillars, the open roof of Irish
oak, the gorgeous ceiling with its blood-red and gold decorations, and
many relics discovered during the restoration, were pointed out and
properly descanted upon. But one might write volumes of a shrine which
kings once underwent many hardships to visit, among them Harold the
Saxon and his conqueror, William of Normandy. Nothing but a visit can
do it justice, and with the advent of the motor car, old St. David's
will again be the shrine of an increasing number of pilgrims, though
their mission and personel be widely different from the wayfarers of
early days.
[Illustration: ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.]
There is only one road out of the lonely little town besides that which
brought us thither and we were soon upon the stony and uncomfortable
highway to Cardigan. Here we found roadmaking in primitive stages; the
broken stone had been loosely scattered along the way waiting for the
heavy-wheeled carts of the farmers to serve the purpose of the steam
roller. The country is pitifully barren and the little hovels--always
gleaming with whitewash--were later called to mind by those in Ireland.
There are no great parks with fine mansions to relieve the monotony of
the scene. Only fugitive glimpses of the ocean from the upland road
occasionally lend a touch of variety. At Fishguard, a mean little town
with a future before it--for it is now the Welsh terminus of the Great
Western Railway's route to Ireland--we paused in the crowded market
square and a courteous policeman approached us, divining that we needed
directions.
"The road to Cardigan? Straight ahead down the hill."
"It looks pretty steep," we suggested.
"Yes, but nothing to the one you must go up out of the town. Just like
the roofs of those houses there, and the road rough and crooked. Yes,
this is all there is of Fishguard; pretty quiet place except on market
days."
We thanked the officer and cautiously descended the hill before us.
We then climbed much the steepest and most dangerous hill we found in
all the twelve thousand or more miles covered by our wanderings. To
our dismay, a grocer's cart across the narrow road compelled us to
stop midway on the precipitous ascent, but the motor proved equal to
the task and we soon looked back down the frightful declivity with a
sigh of relief. We were told later of a traveling showman who had been
over all the main roads of the Island with a traction engine and who
declared this the worst hill he knew of.
Newport--quite different from the Eastern Welsh Newport--and Cardigan
are quaint, old-world villages, though now decayed and shrunken. I will
not write of them, though the history of each is lost in the mists of
antiquity and the former possesses an imposing though ruinous castle.
The road between them is hilly, but the hills are well wooded and the
prospects often magnificent and far-reaching. We found it much the
same after leaving Cardigan, though the country is distinctly better
and more pleasing than the extreme south. The farm houses appear more
prosperous, and well-cared-for gardens surround them. Nowhere did
we find the people kinder or more courteous. An instance occurred
at Carmarthen, where we stopped to consult our maps. The owner of a
near-by jewelry shop came out and accosted us. Did we want information
about the roads? He had lived in Carmarthen many years and was familiar
with all the roads about the town. To Llandovery? We had come too far;
the road north of the river is the best and one of the prettiest in
Wales. It would be worth our while to go back a mile and take this road.
Thanking him, we retraced our way through the long main street of the
town and were soon away over one of the most perfect and beautiful of
Welsh highways. It runs in straight broad stretches between rows of
fine trees, past comfortable-looking farm houses, and through cozy
little hamlets nestling amid trees and shrubbery, and seems constantly
to increase in charm until it takes one into Llandovery, twenty-five
miles from Carmarthen and the center of one of the most picturesque
sections of Wales.
Lying among wooded hills in a valley where two clear little rivers join
their waters, Llandovery--the church among the waters--is a village of
surpassing loveliness. The touch of antiquity so necessary to complete
the charm is in the merest fragment of its castle, a mouldering bit
of wall on a mound overlooking the rivers--dismantled "by Cromwell's
orders." Delightful as the town is, its surroundings are even more
romantic. The highest peaks of South Wales, the Beacon and the Black
Mountains, overlook it and in the recesses of these rugged hills are
many resorts for the fisherman and summer excursionist. From the
summits are vast panoramas of wooded hills and verdant valleys. The
view is so far-reaching that on a clear day one may see the ocean to
the south; or, far distant in the opposite direction, the snow-crowned
mountains of Northern Wales.