LIVERPOOL.

The American transatlantic tourist, after a week or more spent upon the ocean, is usually glad to again see the land. After skirting the bold Irish coast, and peeping into the pretty cove of Cork, with Queenstown in the background, and passing the rocky headlands of Wales, the steamer that brings him from America carefully enters the Mersey River. The shores are low but picturesque as the tourist moves along the estuary between the coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire, and passes the great beacon standing up solitary and alone amid the waste of waters, the Perch Rock Light off New Brighton on the Cheshire side. Thus he comes to the world’s greatest seaport Liverpool and the steamer finally drops her anchor between the miles of docks that front the two cities, Liverpool on the left and Birkenhead on the right. Forests of masts loom up behind the great dock-walls, stretching far away on either bank, while a fleet of arriving or departing steamers is anchored in a long line in mid-channel. Odd-looking, low, black tugs, pouring out thick smoke from double funnels, move over the water, and one of them takes the passengers alongside the capacious structure a half mile long, built on pontoons, so it can rise and fall with the tides, and known as the Prince’s Landing-Stage, where the customs officers perform their brief formalities and quickly let the visitor go ashore over the fine floating bridge into the city.

At Liverpool most American travellers begin their view of England. It is the great city of ships and sailors and all that appertains to the sea, and its 550,000 population are mainly employed in mercantile life and the myriad trades that serve the ship or deal in its cargo, for fifteen thousand to twenty thousand of the largest vessels of modern commerce will enter the Liverpool docks in a year, and its merchants own 7,000,000 tonnage. Fronting these docks on the Liverpool side of the Mersey is the great sea-wall, over five miles long, behind which are enclosed 400 acres of water-surface in the various docks, that are bordered by sixteen miles’ length of quays. On the Birkenhead side of the river there are ten miles of quays in the docks that extend for over two miles along the bank. These docks, which are made necessary to accommodate the enormous commerce, have cost over $50,000,000, and are the crowning glory of Liverpool. They are filled with the ships of all nations, and huge storehouses line the quays, containing products from all parts of the globe, yet chiefly the grain and cotton, provisions, tobacco, and lumber of America. Railways run along the inner border of the docks on a street between them and the town, and along their tracks horses draw the freight-cars, while double-decked passenger-cars also run upon them with broad wheels fitting the rails, yet capable of being run off whenever the driver wishes to get ahead of the slowly-moving freight-cars. Ordinary wagons move upon Strand street alongside, with horses of the largest size drawing them, the huge growth of the Liverpool horses being commensurate with the immense trucks and vans to which these magnificent animals are harnessed.

Liverpool is of great antiquity, but in the time of William the Conqueror was only a fishing-village. Liverpool Castle, long since demolished, was a fortress eight hundred years ago, and afterward the rival families of Molineux and Stanley contended for the mastery of the place. It was a town of slow growth, however, and did not attain full civic dignity till the time of Charles I. It was within two hundred years that it became a seaport of any note. The first dock was opened in 1699, and strangely enough it was the African slave-trade that gave the Liverpool merchants their original start. The port sent out its first slave-ship in 1709, and in 1753 had eighty-eight ships engaged in the slave-trade, which carried over twenty-five thousand slaves from Africa to the New World that year. Slave-auctions were frequent in Liverpool, and one of the streets where these sales were effected was nicknamed “Negro street.” The agitation for the abolition of the trade was carried on a long time before Liverpool submitted, and then privateering came prominently out as the lucrative business a hundred years ago during the French wars, that brought Liverpool great wealth. Next followed the development of trade with the East Indies, and finally the trade with America has grown to such enormous proportions in the present century as to eclipse all other special branches of Liverpool commerce, large as some of them are. This has made many princely fortunes for the merchants and shipowners, and their wealth has been liberally expended in beautifying their city. It has in recent years had very rapid growth, and has greatly increased its architectural adornments. Most amazing has been this advancement since the time in the last century when the mayor and corporation entertained Prince William of Gloucester at dinner, and, pleased at the appetite he developed, one of them called out, “Eat away, Your Royal Highness; there’s plenty more in the kitchen!” The mayor was Jonas Bold, and afterwards, taking the prince to church, they were astonished to find that the preacher had taken for his text the words, “Behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”

Liverpool has several fine buildings. Its Custom House is a large Ionic structure of chaste design, with a tall dome that can be seen from afar, and richly decorated within. The Town Hall and the Exchange buildings make up the four sides of an enclosed quadrangle paved with broad flagstones. Here, around the attractive Nelson monument in the centre, the merchants meet and transact their business. The chief public building is St. George’s Hall, an imposing edifice, surrounded with columns and raised high above one side of an open square, and costing $2,000,000 to build. It is a Corinthian building, having at one end the Great Hall, one hundred and sixty-nine feet long, where public meetings are held, and court-rooms at the other end. Statues of Robert Peel, Gladstone, and Stephenson, with other great men, adorn the Hall. Sir William Brown, who amassed a princely fortune in Liverpool, has presented the city with a splendid free library and museum, which stands in a magnificent position on Shaw’s Brow. Many of the streets are lined with stately edifices, public and private, and most of these avenues diverge from the square fronting St. George’s Hall, opposite which is the fine station of the London and North-western Railway, which, as is the railroad custom in England, is also a large hotel. The suburbs of Liverpool are filled for a wide circuit with elegant rural homes and surrounding ornamental grounds, where the opulent merchants live. They are generally bordered with high stone walls, interfering with the view, and impressing the visitor strongly with the idea that an Englishman’s house is his castle. Several pretty parks with ornamental lakes among their hills are also in the suburbs. Yet it is the vast trade that is the glory of Liverpool, for it is but an epitome of England’s commercial greatness, and is of comparatively modern growth. “All this,” not long ago said Lord Erskine, speaking of the rapid advancement of Liverpool, “has been created by the industry and well-disciplined management of a handful of men since I was a boy.”

KNOWSLEY HALL.

A few miles out of Liverpool is the village of Prescot, where Kemble the tragedian was born, and where the people at the present time are largely engaged in watchmaking. Not far from Prescot is one of the famous homes of England Knowsley Hall, the seat of the Stanleys and of the Earls of Derby for five hundred years. The park covers two thousand acres and is almost ten miles in circumference. The greater portion of the famous house was built in the time of George II. It is an extensive and magnificent structure, and contains many art-treasures in its picture-gallery by Rembrandt, Rubens, Correggio, Teniers, Vandyke, Salvator Rosa, and others. The Stanleys are one of the governing families of England, the last Earl of Derby having been premier in 1866, and the present earl having also been a cabinet minister. The crest of the Stanleys represents the Eagle and the Child, and is derived from the story of a remote ancestor who, cherishing an ardent desire for a male heir, and having only a daughter, contrived to have an infant conveyed to the foot of a tree in the park frequented by an eagle. Here he and his lady, taking a walk, found the child as if by accident, and the lady, considering it a gift from Heaven brought by the eagle and miraculously preserved, adopted the boy as her heir. From this time the crest was assumed, but we are told that the old knight’s conscience smote him at the trick, and on his deathbed he bequeathed the chief part of his fortune to the daughter, from whom are descended the present family.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF CHESTER.

Not far from Liverpool, and in the heart of Cheshire, we come to the small but famous river Dee and the old and very interesting city of Chester. It is built in the form of a quadrant, its four walls enclosing a plot about a half mile square. The walls, which form a promenade two miles around, over which every visitor should tramp; the quaint gates and towers; the “Rows,” or arcades along the streets, which enable the sidewalks to pass under the upper stories of the houses by cutting away the first-floor front rooms; and the many ancient buildings, are all attractive. The Chester Cathedral is a venerable building of red sandstone, which comes down to us from the twelfth century, though it has recently been restored. It is constructed in the Perpendicular style of architecture, with a square and turret-surmounted central tower. This is the Cathedral of St. Werburgh, and besides other merits of the attractive interior, the southern transept is most striking from its exceeding length. The choir is richly ornamented with carvings and fine woodwork, the Bishop’s Throne having originally been a pedestal for the shrine of St. Werburgh. The cathedral contains several ancient tombs of much interest, and the elaborate Chapter Room, with its Early English windows and pillars, is much admired. In this gorgeous structure the word of God is preached from a Bible whose magnificently-bound cover is inlaid with precious stones and its markers adorned with pearls. The book is the Duke of Westminster’s gift, that nobleman being the landlord of much of Chester. In the nave of the cathedral are two English battle-flags that were at Bunker Hill. Chester Castle, now used as a barrack for troops, has only one part of the ancient edifice left, called Julius Caesar’s Tower, near which the Dee is spanned by a fine single-arch bridge.

The quaintest part of this curious old city of Chester is no doubt the “Rows,” above referred to. These arcades, which certainly form a capital shelter from the hot sun or rain, were, according to one authority, originally built as a refuge for the people in case of sudden attack by the Welsh; but according to others they originated with the Romans, and were used as the vestibules of the houses; and this seems to be the more popular theory with the townsfolk. Under the “Rows” are shops of all sizes, and some of the buildings are grotesquely attractive, especially the curious one bearing the motto of safety from the plague, “God’s providence is mine inheritance,” standing on Watergate street, and known as “God’s Providence House;” and “Bishop Lloyd’s Palace,” which is ornamented with quaint wood-carvings. The “Old Lamb Row,” where Randall Holme, the Chester antiquary, lived, stood by itself, obeying no rule of regularity, and was regarded as a nuisance two hundred years ago, though later it was highly prized. The city corporation in 1670 ordered that “the nuisance erected by Randall Holme in his new building in Bridge street be taken down, as it annoys his neighbors, and hinders their prospect from their houses.” But this law seems to have been enforced no more than many others are on either side of the ocean, for the “nuisance” stood till 1821, when the greater part of it, the timbers having rotted, fell of its own accord. The “Dark Row” is the only one of these strange arcades that is closed from the light, for it forms a kind of tunnel through which the footwalk goes. Not far from this is the famous old “Stanley House,” where one unfortunate Earl of Derby spent the last day before his execution in 1657 at Bolton. The carvings on the front of this house are very fine, and there is told in reference to the mournful event that marks its history the following story: Lieutenant Smith came from the governor of Chester to notify the condemned earl to be ready for the journey to Bolton. The earl asked, “When would you have me go?” “To-morrow, about six in the morning,” said Smith. “Well,” replied the earl, “commend me to the governor, and tell him I shall be ready by that time.” Then said Smith, “Doth your lordship know any friend or servant that would do the thing your lordship knows of? It would do well if you had a friend.” The earl replied, “What do you mean? to cut off my head?” Smith said, “Yes, my lord, if you could have a friend.” The earl answered, “Nay, sir, if those men that would have my head will not find one to cut it off, let it stand where it is.”

It is easy in this strange old city to carry back the imagination for centuries, for it preserves its connection with the past better perhaps than any other English town. The city holds the keys of the outlet of the Dee, which winds around it on two sides, and is practically one of the gates into Wales. Naturally, the Romans established a fortress here more than a thousand years ago, and made it the head-quarters of their twentieth legion, who impressed upon the town the formation of a Roman camp, which it bears to this day. The very name of Chester is derived from the Latin word for a camp. Many Roman fragments still remain, the most notable being the Hyptocaust. This was found in Watergate street about a century ago, together with a tessellated pavement. There have also been exhumed Roman altars, tombs, mosaics, pottery and other similar relics. The city is built upon a sandstone rock, and this furnishes much of the building material, so that most of the edifices have their exteriors disintegrated by the elements, particularly the churches a peculiarity that may have probably partly justified Dean Swift’s epigram, written when his bile was stirred because a rainstorm had prevented some of the Chester clergy from dining with him:

“Churches and clergy of this city Are very much akin: They’re weather-beaten all without, And empty all within.”

The modernized suburbs of Chester, filled with busy factories, are extending beyond the walls over a larger surface than the ancient town itself. At the angles of the old walls stand the famous towers the Phoenix Tower, Bonwaldesthorne’s Tower, Morgan’s Mount, the Goblin Tower, and the Water Tower, while the gates in the walls are almost equally famous the Eastgate, Northgate, Watergate, Bridgegate, Newgate, and Peppergate. The ancient Abbey of St. Mary had its site near the castle, and not far away are the picturesque ruins of St. John’s Chapel, outside the walls. According to a local legend, its neighborhood had the honor of sheltering an illustrious fugitive. Harold, the Saxon king, we are told, did not fall at Hastings, but, escaping, spent the remainder of his life as a hermit, dwelling in a cell near this chapel and on a cliff alongside the Dee. The four streets leading from the gates at the middle of each side of the town come together in the centre at a place formerly known as the “Pentise,” where was located the bull-ring at which was anciently carried on the refining sport of “bull-baiting” while the mayor and corporation, clad in their gowns of office, looked on approvingly. Prior to this sport beginning, we are told that solemn proclamation was made for “the safety of the king and the mayor of Chester” that “if any man stands within twenty yards of the bull-ring, let him take what comes.” Here stood also the stocks and pillory. Amid so much that is ancient and quaint, the new Town Hall, a beautiful structure recently erected, is naturally most attractive, its dedication to civic uses having been made by the present Prince of Wales, who bears among many titles that of Earl of Chester. But this is about the only modern attraction this interesting city possesses. At an angle of the walls are the “Dee Mills,” as old as the Norman Conquest, and famous in song as the place where the “jolly miller once lived on the Dee.” Full of attractions within and without, it is difficult to tear one’s self away from this quaint city, and therefore we will agree, at least in one sense, with Dr. Johnson’s blunt remark to a lady friend: “I have come to Chester, madam, I cannot tell how, and far less can I tell how to get away from it.”

CHESHIRE.

The county of Cheshire has other attractions. But a short distance from Chester, in the valley of the Dee, is Eaton Hall, the elaborate palace of the Duke of Westminster and one of the finest seats in England, situated in a park of eight hundred acres that extends to the walls of Chester. This palace has recently been almost entirely rebuilt and modernized, and is now the most spacious and splendid example of Revived Gothic architecture in England. The house contains many works of art statues by Gibson, paintings by Rubens and others and is full of the most costly and beautiful decorations and furniture, being essentially one of the show-houses of Britain. In the extensive gardens are a Roman altar found in Chester and a Greek altar brought from Delphi. At Hawarden Castle, seven miles from Chester, is the home of William E. Gladstone, and in its picturesque park are the ruins of the ancient castle, dating from the time of the Tudors, and from the keep of which there is a fine view of the Valley of the Dee. The ruins of Ewloe Castle, six hundred years old, are not far away, but so buried in foliage that they are difficult to find. Two miles from Chester is Hoole House, formerly Lady Broughton’s, famous for its rockwork, a lawn of less than an acre exquisitely planted with clipped yews and other trees being surrounded by a rockery over forty feet high. In the Wirral or Western Cheshire are several attractive villages. At Bidston, west of Birkenhead and on the sea-coast, is the ancient house that was once the home of the unfortunate Earl of Derby, whose execution is mentioned above. Congleton, in Eastern Cheshire, stands on the Dane, in a lovely country, and is a good example of an old English country-town. Its Lion Inn is a fine specimen of the ancient black-and-white gabled hostelrie which novelists love so well to describe. At Nantwich is a curious old house with a heavy octagonal bow-window in the upper story overhanging a smaller lower one, telescope-fashion. The noble tower of Nantwich church rises above, and the building is in excellent preservation.

Nearly in the centre of Cheshire is the stately fortress of Beeston Castle, standing on a sandstone rock rising some three hundred and sixty feet from the flat country. It was built nearly seven hundred years ago by an Earl of Cheshire, then just returned from the Crusades. Standing in an irregular court covering about five acres, its thick walls and deep ditch made it a place of much strength. It was ruined prior to the time of Henry VIII., having been long contended for and finally dismantled in the Wars of the Roses. Being then rebuilt, it became a famous fortress in the Civil Wars, having been seized by the Roundheads, then surprised and taken by the Royalists, alternately besieged and defended afterward, and finally starved into surrender by the Parliamentary troops in 1645. This was King Charles’s final struggle, though the castle did not succumb till after eighteen weeks’ siege, and its defenders were forced to eat cats and rats to satisfy hunger, and were reduced to only sixty. Beeston Castle was then finally dismantled, and its ruins are now an attraction to the tourist. Lea Hall, an ancient and famous timbered mansion, surrounded by a moat, was situated about six miles from Chester, but the moat alone remains to show where it stood. Here lived Sir Hugh Calveley, one of Froissart’s heroes, who was governor of Calais when it was held by the English, and is buried under a sumptuous tomb in the church of the neighboring college of Bunbury, which he founded. His armed effigy surmounts the tomb, and the inscription says he died on St. George’s Day, 1394.

THE RIVER DEE.

Frequent reference has been made to the river Dee, the Deva of the Welsh, which is unquestionably one of the finest streams of Britain. It rises in the Arran Fowddwy, one of the chief Welsh mountains, nearly three thousand feet high, and after a winding course of about seventy miles falls into the Irish Sea. This renowned stream has been the theme of many a poet, and after expanding near its source into the beautiful Bala Lake, whose bewitching surroundings are nearly all described in polysyllabic and unpronounceable Welsh names, and are popular among artists and anglers, it flows through Edeirnim Vale, past Corwen. Here a pathway ascends to the eminence known as Glendower’s Seat, with which tradition has closely knit the name of the Welsh hero, the close of whose marvellous career marked the termination of Welsh independence. Then the romantic Dee enters the far-famed Valley of Llangollen, where tourists love to roam, and where lived the “Ladies of Llangollen.” We are told that these two high-born dames had many lovers, but, rejecting all and enamored only of each other, Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby, the latter sixteen years the junior of the former, determined on a life of celibacy. They eloped together from Ireland, were overtaken and brought back, and then a second time decamped on this occasion in masquerade, the elder dressed as a peasant and the younger as a smart groom in top-boots. Escaping pursuit, they settled in Llangollen in 1778 at the quaint little house called Plas Newydd, and lived there together for a half century. Their costume was extraordinary, for they appeared in public in blue riding-habits, men’s neckcloths, and high hats, with their hair cropped short. They had antiquarian tastes, which led to the accumulation of a vast lot of old wood-carvings and stained glass, gathered from all parts of the world and worked into the fittings and adornment of their home. They were on excellent terms with all the neighbors, and the elder died in 1829, aged ninety, and the younger two years afterward, aged seventy-six. Their remains lie in Llangollen churchyard.

Within this famous valley are the ruins of Valle-Crucis Abbey, the most picturesque abbey ruin in North Wales. An adjacent stone cross gave it the name six hundred years ago, when it was built by the great Madoc for the Cistercian monks. The ruins in some parts are now availed of for farm-houses. Fine ash trees bend over the ruined arches, ivy climbs the clustered columns, and the lancet windows with their delicate tracery are much admired. The remains consist of the church, abbot’s lodgings, refectory, and dormitory. The church was cruciform, and is now nearly roofless, though the east and west ends and the southern transept are tolerably perfect, so that much of the abbey remains. It was occupied by the Cistercians, and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The ancient cross, of which the remains are still standing near by, is Eliseg’s Pillar, erected in the seventh century as a memorial of that Welsh prince. It was one of the earliest lettered stones in Britain, standing originally about twelve feet high. From this cross came the name of Valle Crucis, which in the thirteenth century was given to the famous abbey. The great Madoc, who lived in the neighboring castle of Dinas Bran, built this abbey to atone for a life of violence. The ruins of his castle stand on a hill elevated about one thousand feet above the Dee. Bran in Welsh means crow, so that the English know it as Crow Castle. From its ruins there is a beautiful view over the Valley of Llangollen. Farther down the valley is the mansion of Wynnstay, in the midst of a large and richly wooded park, a circle of eight miles enclosing the superb domain, within which are herds of fallow-deer and many noble trees. The old mansion was burnt in 1858, and an imposing structure in Renaissance now occupies the site. Fine paintings adorn the walls by renowned artists, and the Dee foams over its rocky bed in a sequestered dell near the mansion. Memorial columns and tablets in the park mark notable men and events in the Wynn family, the chief being the Waterloo Tower, ninety feet high. Far away down the valley a noble aqueduct by Telford carries the Ellesmere Canal over the Dee the Pont Cysylltau supported on eighteen piers of masonry at an elevation of one hundred and twenty-one feet, while a mile below is the still more imposing viaduct carrying the Great Western Railway across.

Not far distant is Chirk Castle, now the home of Mr. R. Myddelton Biddulph, a combination of a feudal fortress and a modern mansion. The ancient portion, still preserved, was built by Roger Mortimer, to whom Edward I. granted the lordship of Chirk. It was a bone of contention during the Civil Wars, and when they were over, $150,000 were spent in repairing the great quadrangular fortress. It stands in a noble situation, and on a clear day portions of seventeen counties can be seen from the summit. Still following down the picturesque river, we come to Bangor-ys-Coed, or “Bangor-in-the-Wood,” in Flintshire, once the seat of a famous monastery that disappeared twelve hundred years ago. Here a pretty bridge crosses the river, and a modern church is the most prominent structure in the village. The old monastery is said to have been the home of twenty-four hundred monks, one half of whom were slain in a battle near Chester by the heathen king Ethelfrith, who afterwards sacked the monastery, but the Welsh soon gathered their forces again and took terrible vengeance. Many ancient coffins and Roman remains have been found here. The Dee now runs with swift current past Overton to the ancient town of Holt, whose charter is nearly five hundred years old, but whose importance is now much less than of yore. Holt belongs to the debatable Powisland, the strip of territory over which the English and Welsh fought for centuries. Holt was formerly known as Lyons, and was a Roman outpost of Chester. Edward I. granted it to Earl Warren, who built Holt Castle, of which only a few quaint pictures now exist, though it was a renowned stronghold in its day. It was a five-sided structure with a tower on each corner, enclosing an ample courtyard. After standing several sieges in the Civil Wars of Cromwell’s time, the battered castle was dismantled.

The famous Wrexham Church, whose tower is regarded as one of the “seven wonders of Wales,” is three miles from Holt, and is four hundred years old. Few churches built as early as the reign of Henry VIII. can compare with this. It is dedicated to St. Giles, and statues of him and of twenty-nine other saints embellish niches in the tower. Alongside of St. Giles is the hind that nourished him in the desert. The bells of Wrexham peal melodiously over the valley, and in the vicarage the good Bishop Heber wrote the favorite hymn, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains.” Then the Dee flows on past the ducal palace of Eaton Hall, and encircles Chester, which has its race-course, “The Roodee” where they hold an annual contest in May for the “Chester Cup” enclosed by a beautiful semicircle of the river. Then the Dee flows on through a straight channel for six miles to its estuary, which broadens among treacherous sands and flats between Flintshire and Cheshire, till it falls into the Irish Sea. Many are the tales of woe that are told of the “Sands o’ Dee,” along which the railway from Chester to Holyhead skirts the edge in Flintshire. Many a poor girl, sent for the cattle wandering on these sands, has been lost in the mist that rises from the sea, and drowned by the quickly rushing waters. Kingsley has plaintively told the story in his mournful poem:

“They rowed her in across the rolling foam The cruel, crawling foam, The cruel, hungry foam To her grave beside the sea; But still the boatmen hear her call her cattle home Across the Sands o’ Dee.”

FLINT AND DENBIGH.

Let us now journey westward from the Dee into Wales, coming first into Flintshire. The town of Flint, it is conjectured, was originally a Roman camp, from the design and the antiquities found there. Edward I., six hundred years ago, built Flint Castle upon an isolated rock in a marsh near the river, and after a checquered history it was dismantled in the seventeenth century. From the railway between Chester and Holyhead the ruins of this castle are visible on its low freestone rock; it is a square, with round towers at three of the corners, and a massive keep at the other, formed like a double tower and detached from the main castle. This was the “dolorous castle” into which Richard II. was inveigled at the beginning of his imprisonment, which ended with abdication, and finally his death at Pomfret. The story is told that Richard had a fine greyhound at Flint Castle that often caressed him, but when the Duke of Lancaster came there the greyhound suddenly left Richard and caressed the duke, who, not knowing the dog, asked Richard what it meant. “Cousin,” replied the king, “it means a great deal for you and very little for me. I understand by it that this greyhound pays his court to you as King of England, which you will surely be, and I shall be deposed, for the natural instinct of the dog shows it to him; keep him, therefore, by your side.” Lancaster treasured this, and paid attention to the dog, which would nevermore follow Richard, but kept by the side of the Duke of Lancaster, “as was witnessed,” says the chronicler Froissart, “by thirty thousand men.”

Rhuddlan Castle, also in Flintshire, is a red sandstone ruin of striking appearance, standing on the Clwyd River. When it was founded no one knows accurately, but it was rebuilt seven hundred years ago, and was dismantled, like many other Welsh castles, in 1646. It was at Rhuddlan that Edward I. promised the Welsh “a native prince who never spoke a word of English, and whose life and conversation no man could impugn;” and this promise he fulfilled to the letter by naming as the first English Prince of Wales his infant son, then just born at Caernarvon Castle. Six massive towers flank the walls of this famous castle, and are in tolerably fair preservation. Not far to the southward is the eminence known by the Welsh as “Yr-Wyddgrug,” or “a lofty hill,” and which the English call Mold. On this hill was a castle of which little remains now but tracings of the ditches, larches and other trees peacefully growing on the site of the ancient stronghold. Off toward Wrexham are the ruins of another castle, known as Caergwrle, or “the camp of the giant legion.” This was of Welsh origin, and commanded the entrance to the Vale of Alen; the English called it Hope Castle.

Adjoining Flintshire is Denbigh, with the quiet watering-place of Abergele out on the Irish Sea. About two miles away is St. Asaph, with its famous cathedral, having portions dating from the thirteenth century. The great castle of Denbigh, when in its full glory, had fortifications one and a half miles in circumference. It stood on a steep hill at the county-town, where scanty ruins now remain, consisting chiefly of an immense gateway with remains of flanking towers. Above the entrance is a statue of the Earl of Lincoln, its founder in the thirteenth century. His only son was drowned in the castle-well, which so affected the father that he did not finish the castle. Edward II. gave Denbigh to Despenser; Leicester owned it in Elizabeth’s time; Charles II. dismantled it. The ruins impress the visitor with the stupendous strength of the immense walls of this stronghold, while extensive passages and dungeons have been explored beneath the surface for long distances. In one chamber near the entrance-tower, which had been walled up, a large amount of gunpowder was found. At Holywell, now the second town in North Wales, is the shrine to which pilgrims have been going for many centuries. At the foot of a steep hill, from an aperture in the rock, there rushes forth a torrent of water at the rate of eighty-four hogsheads a minute; whether the season be wet or be dry, the sacred stream gushing forth from St. Winifrede’s Well varies but little, and around it grows the fragrant moss known as St. Winifrede’s Hair. The spring has valuable medicinal virtues, and an elegant dome covering it supports a chapel. The little building is an exquisite Gothic structure built by Henry VII. A second basin is provided, into which bathers may descend. The pilgrims to this holy well have of late years decreased in numbers; James II., who, we are told, “lost three kingdoms for a mass,” visited this well in 1686, and “received as a reward the undergarment worn by his great-grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, on the day of her execution.” This miraculous spring gets its name from the pious virgin Winifrede. She having been seen by the Prince of Wales, Caradoc, he was struck by her great beauty and attempted to carry her off; she fled to the church, the prince pursuing, and, overtaking her, he in rage drew his sword and struck off her head; the severed head bounded through the church-door and rolled to the foot of the altar. On the spot where it rested a spring of uncommon size burst forth. The pious priest took up the head, and at his prayer it was united to the body, and the virgin, restored to life, lived in sanctity for fifteen years afterwards: miracles were wrought at her tomb; the spring proved another Pool of Bethesda, and to this day we are told that the votive crutches and chairs left by the cured remain hanging over St. Winifrede’s Well.

South of Denbigh, in Montgomeryshire, are the ruins of Montgomery Castle, long a frontier fortress of Wales, around which many hot contests have raged: a fragment of a tower and portions of the walls are all that remain. Powys Castle is at Welsh Pool, and is still preserved a red sandstone structure on a rocky elevation in a spacious and well-wooded park; Sir Robert Smirke has restored it.

THE MENAI STRAIT.

Still journeying westward, we come to Caernarvonshire, and reach the remarkable estuary dividing the mainland from the island of Anglesea, and known as the Menai Strait. This narrow stream, with its steeply-sloping banks and winding shores, looks more like a river than a strait, and it everywhere discloses evidence of the residence of an almost pre-historic people in relics of nations that inhabited its banks before the invasion of the Romans. There are hill-forts, sepulchral mounds, pillars of stone, rude pottery, weapons of stone and bronze; and in that early day Mona itself, as Anglesea was called, was a sacred island. Here were fierce struggles between Roman and Briton, and Tacitus tells of the invasion of Mona by the Romans and the desperate conflicts that ensued as early as A.D. 60. The history of the strait is a story of almost unending war for centuries, and renowned castles bearing the scars of these conflicts keep watch and ward to this day. Beaumaris, Bangor, Caernarvon, and Conway castles still remain in partial ruin to remind us of the Welsh wars of centuries ago. On the Anglesea shore, at the northern entrance to the strait, is the picturesque ruin of Beaumaris Castle, built by Edward I. at a point where vessels could conveniently land. It stands on the lowlands, and a canal connects its ditch with the sea. It consists of a hexagonal line of outer defences surrounding an inner square. Round towers flanked the outer walls, and the chapel within is quite well preserved. It has not had much place in history, and the neighboring town is now a peaceful watering-place.

Across the strait is Bangor, a rather straggling town, with a cathedral that is not very old. We are told that its bishop once sold its peal of bells, and, going down to the shore to see them shipped away, was stricken blind as a punishment for the sacrilege. Of Bangor Castle, as it originally stood, but insignificant traces remain, but Lord Penrhyn has recently erected in the neighborhood the imposing castle of Penryhn, a massive pile of dark limestone, in which the endeavor is made to combine a Norman feudal castle with a modern dwelling, though with only indifferent success, excepting in the expenditure involved. The roads from the great suspension-bridge across the strait lead on either hand to Bangor and Beaumaris, although the route is rather circuitous. This bridge, crossing at the narrowest and most beautiful part of the strait, was long regarded as the greatest triumph of bridge-engineering. It carried the Holyhead high-road across the strait, and was built by Telford. The bridge is five hundred and seventy-nine feet long, and stands one hundred feet above high-water mark; it cost $600,000. Above the bridge the strait widens, and here, amid the swift-flowing currents, the famous whitebait are caught for the London epicures. Three-quarters of a mile below, at another narrow place, the railway crosses the strait through Stephenson’s Britannia tubular bridge, which is more useful than ornamental, the railway passing through two long rectangular iron tubes, supported on plain massive pillars. From a rock in the strait the central tower rises to a height of two hundred and thirty feet, and other towers are built on each shore at a distance of four hundred and sixty feet from the central one. Couchant lions carved in stone guard the bridge-portals at each end, and this famous viaduct cost over $2,500,000. A short distance below the Anglesea Column towers above a dark rock on the northern shore of the strait. It was erected in honor of the first Marquis of Anglesea, the gallant commander of the British light cavalry at Waterloo, where his leg was carried away by one of the last French cannon-shots. For many years after the great victory he lived here, literally with “one foot in the grave.” Plas Newydd, one and a half miles below, the Anglesea family residence, where the marquis lived, is a large and unattractive mansion, beautifully situated on the sloping shore. It has in the park two ancient sepulchral monuments of great interest to the antiquarian.

CAERNARVON AND CONWAY.

As the famous strait widens below the bridges the shores are tamer, and we come to the famous Caernarvon Castle, the scene of many stirring military events, as it held the key to the valleys of Snowdon, and behind it towers that famous peak, the highest mountain in Britain, whose summit rises to a height of 3590 feet. This great castle also commanded the south-western entrance to the strait, and near it the rapid little Sciont River flows into the sea. The ancient Britons had a fort here, and afterwards it was a Roman fortified camp, which gradually developed into the city of Segontium. The British name, from which the present one comes, was Caer-yn-Arvon “the castle opposite to Mona.” Segontium had the honor of being the birthplace of the Emperor Constantine, and many Roman remains still exist there. It was in 1284, however, that Edward I. began building the present castle, and it took thirty-nine years to complete. The castle plan is an irregular oval, with one side overlooking the strait. At the end nearest the sea, where the works come to a blunt point, is the famous Eagle Tower, which has eagles sculptured on the battlements. There are twelve towers altogether, and these, with the light-and dark-hued stone in the walls, give the castle a massive yet graceful aspect as it stands on the low ground at the mouth of the Sciont. Externally, the castle is in good preservation, but the inner buildings are partly destroyed, as is also the Queen’s Gate, where Queen Eleanor is said to have entered before the first English Prince of Wales was born. A corridor, with loopholes contrived in the thickness of the walls, runs entirely around the castle, and from this archers could fight an approaching enemy. This great fortress has been called the “boast of North Wales” from its size and excellent position. It was last used for defence during the Civil Wars, having been a military stronghold for nearly four centuries. Although Charles II. issued a warrant for its demolition, this was to a great extent disregarded. Prynne, the sturdy Puritan, was confined here in Charles I.’s time, and the first English Prince of Wales, afterwards the unfortunate Edward II., is said to have been born in a little dark room, only twelve by eight feet, in the Eagle Tower: when seventeen years of age the prince received the homage of the Welsh barons at Chester. The town of Caernarvon, notwithstanding its famous history and the possession of the greatest ruin in Wales, now derives its chief satisfaction from the lucrative but prosaic occupation of trading in slates.

At the northern extremity of Caernarvon county, and projecting into the Irish Sea, is the promontory known as Great Orme’s Head, and near it is the mouth of the Conway River. The railway to Holyhead crosses this river on a tubular bridge four hundred feet long, and runs almost under the ruins of Conway Castle, another Welsh stronghold erected by Edward I. We are told that this despotic king, when he had completed the conquest of Wales, came to Conway, the shape of the town being something like a Welsh harp, and he ordered all the native bards to be put to death. Gray founded upon this his ode, “The Bard,” beginning

“On a rock whose lofty brow Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood, Robed in a sable garb of woe. With haggard eyes the poet stood.”

This ode has so impressed the Conway folk that they have been at great pains to discover the exact spot where the despairing bard plunged into the river, and several enthusiastic persons have discovered the actual site. The castle stands upon a high rock, and its builder soon after its completion was besieged there by the Welsh, but before being starved into submission was relieved by the timely arrival of a fleet with provisions. It was in the hall of Conway Castle that Richard II. signed his abdication. The castle was stormed and taken by Cromwell’s troops in the Civil Wars, and we are told that all the Irish found in the garrison were tied in couples, back to back, and thrown into the river. The castle was not dismantled, but the townsfolk in their industrious quarrying of slates have undermined one of the towers, which, though kept up by the solidity of the surrounding masonry, is known as the “Broken Tower.” There was none of the “bonus building” of modern times attempted in these ponderous Welsh castles of the great King Edward. The ruins are an oblong square, standing on the edge of a steep rock washed on two sides by the river; the embattled walls, partly covered by ivy, are twelve to fifteen feet thick, and are flanked by eight huge circular towers, each forty feet in diameter; the interior is in partial ruin, but shows traces of its former magnificence; the stately hall is one hundred and thirty feet long. The same architect designed both Caernarvon and Conway. A fine suspension-bridge now crosses the river opposite the castle, its towers being built in harmony with the architecture of the place, so that the structure looks much like a drawbridge for the fortress. Although the Conway River was anciently a celebrated pearl-fishery, slate-making, as at Caernarvon, is now the chief industry of the town.

There are many other historic places in Caernarvonshire, and also splendid bits of rural and coast scenery, while the attractions for the angler as well as the artist are almost limitless. One of the prettiest places for sketching, as well as a spot where the fisherman’s skill is often rewarded, is Bettws-y-Coed. This pretty village, which derives its name from a religious establishment “Bede-house in the Wood” that was formerly there, but long ago disappeared, is a favorite resort for explorations of the ravines leading down from Mount Snowdon, which towers among the clouds to the southward. Not far away are the attractive Falls of the Conway, and from a rock above them is a good view of the wonderful ravine of Fors Noddyn, through which the river flows. Around it there is a noble assemblage of hills and headlands. Here, joining with the Conway, comes through another ravine the pretty Machno in a succession of sparkling cascades and rapids. Not far away is the wild and lovely valley of the Lledr, another tributary of the Conway, which comes tumbling down a romantic fissure cut into the frowning sides of the mountain. At Dolwyddelan a solitary tower is all that remains of the castle, once commanding from its bold perch on the rocks the narrow pass in the valley. It is at present a little village of slate-quarriers. The Llugwy is yet another attractive tributary of the Conway, which boasts in its course the Rhavadr-y-Wenol, or the Swallow Fall. This, after a spell of rainy weather, is considered the finest cataract in Wales for the breadth and volume of the water that descends, though not for its height. This entire region is full of charming scenery, and of possibly what some may love even better, good trout-fishing. Following the Conway Valley still farther up, and crossing over the border into Denbigh, we come to the little market-town of Llanrwst. It contains two attractive churches, the older one containing many curious monuments and some good carvings, the latter having been brought from Maenant Abbey. But the chief curiosity of this little Welsh settlement is the bridge crossing the Conway. It was constructed by Inigo Jones, and is a three-arched stone bridge, which has the strange peculiarity that by pushing a particular portion of the parapet it can be made to vibrate from one end to the other. Gwydyr House, the seat of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, is in the neighborhood, a small part of the original mansion built in 1555 remaining. Near Trefriw lived Taliesin, the father of Welsh poetry, and a monument erected by that nobleman on the river-bank perpetuates his memory.

The recollection among the Welsh of the life and exploits of the great chieftain of former times, Madoc, is held very dear in Caernarvonshire, and is preserved not only in many legends, but also in the thriving and pleasant little seaport known as Port Madoc, which has grown up out of the slate-trade. Its wharf is a wilderness of slates, and much of the land in the neighborhood has been recovered from the sea. The geology as well as the scenery here is an interesting study. In fact, the whole Caernarvon coast, which stretches away to the south-west in the long peninsula that forms Cardigan Bay, is full of pleasant and attractive locations for student and tourist, and entwined around all are weird legends of the heroes and doings of the mystical days of the dim past, when Briton and Roman contended for the mastery of this historic region.

THE COAST OF MERIONETH.

Let us make a brief excursion south of Mount Snowdon, along the coast of the pastoral county of Merioneth, where Nature has put many crags and stones and a little gold and wheat, but where the people’s best reliance is their flocks. At the place where the Mawddach joins the sea is Barmouth, where a fishing-village has of late years bloomed into a fashionable watering-place. The houses are built on a strip of sand and the precipitous hillside beyond, and the cottages are perched wherever they can conveniently hold on to the crags, the devious pathways and flights of steps leading up to them presenting a quaint aspect. The bends of the Mawddach, as it goes inland among the hills, present miles of unique scenery, the great walls of Cader Idris closing the background. Several hilltops in the neighborhood contain fortifications, and are marked by the old tombs known as cromlechs and Druids’ altars. On the sea-coast curious reefs project, the chief of them being St. Patrick’s Causeway. The legend tells us that a Welsh chieftain fifteen hundred years ago constructed these reefs to protect the lowlands from the incursions of the sea, and on the lands thus reclaimed there stood no less than twelve fortified Welsh cities. But, unfortunately, one stormy night the guardian of the embankments got drunk, and, slumbering at the critical moment, the waves rushed in, sweeping all before them. In the morning, where had before been fortified cities and a vast population, there was only a waste of waters. St. Patrick, we are told, used his causeway to bear him dryshod as far as possible when he walked the waters to Ireland.

Let us penetrate into the interior by going up the romantic valley of the Mawddach and viewing the frowning sides of the chief Merioneth mountain, Cader Idris, which towers on the right hand to the height of 3100 feet. It is a long ridge rather than a peak, and steep precipices guard the upper portion. Two little lakes near the summit, enclosed by cliffs, afford magnificent scenery. Here is “Idris’s Chair,” where the grim magician, who used to make the mountain his home, sat to perform his incantations, whilst in a hollow at the summit he had his couch. According to Welsh tradition, whoever passed the night there would emerge in the morning either mad or a poet. This mountain, like Snowdon, is said to have been formerly a volcano, and legends tell of the fiery outbursts that came from its craters, now occupied by the two little lakes. But the truth of these legends, though interwoven into Welsh poetry, is denied by prosaic geologists. A rough and steep track, known as the “Fox’s Path,” leads to the summit, and there is a fine view northward across the valleys to the distant summits of Snowdon and its attendant peaks, while spread at our feet to the westward is the broad expanse of Cardigan Bay. Lakes abound in the lowlands, and, pursuing the road up the Mawddach we pass the “Pool of the Three Pebbles.” Once upon a time three stones got into the shoe of the giant Idris as he was walking about his domain, and he stopped here and threw them out. Here they still remain three ponderous boulders in the lake.

We leave the Mawddach and follow its tributary, the little river Wnion, as it ripples along over its pebbly bed guarded by strips of meadow. Soon we come to the lovely “Village of the Hazels,” Dolgelly, standing in the narrow valley, and probably the prettiest spot in Wales. Steep hills rise on either hand, with bare craggy summits and the lower slopes richly wooded. Deep dells running into the hills vary the scenery, and thus the town is set in an amphitheatre of hills, up whose flanks the houses seem to climb. There is a little old church, and in a back court the ruins of the “Parliament House,” where Owen Glendower assembled the Welsh Parliament in 1404. The Torrent Walk, where the stream from the mountain is spanned by picturesque bridges, is a favorite resort of the artist, and also one of the most charming bits of scenery in the neighborhood of this beautiful town. Pursuing the valley farther up and crossing the watershed, we come to the largest inland water of Wales, the beautiful Bala Lake, heretofore referred to in describing the river Dee, which drains it. It is at an elevation of six hundred feet, surrounded by mountain-peaks, and the possibility of making it available as a water-supply for London has been considered.

There is an attractive place on the Merioneth coast to the southward of Barmouth, at the mouth of the Rheidol, and near the estuary of the river Dovey. A ruined tower on a low eminence guards the harbor, where now is a fashionable watering-place, and is almost all that remains of the once powerful Aberystwith Castle, another stronghold of King Edward I. Portions of the entrance-gate and barbican can be traced, while the modern houses of the town are spread to the northward along the semicircular bay. The University College of Wales is located here, and the town is popularly known as the “Welsh Brighton,” while among its antiquities in the suburbs is the ruined castellated mansion of Plas Crug, said to have been Glendower’s home. On the northern part of the Merioneth coast is the entrance to the pleasant vale of Pfestiniog, another attractive spot to tourists. Tan-y-bwlch and Maentwrog are romantic villages adjoining each other in this pretty valley full of waterfalls, among these being the renowned Black Cataract and the Raven Fall.

About twelve miles north of Barmouth the picturesque Harlech Castle stands on a promontory guarding the entrance to the Traeth. The cliff is precipitous, with just enough level surface on the top to accommodate the castle. The place is a quadrangle, with massive round towers at the corners connected by lofty curtain-walls. Circular towers, protected by a barbican, guard the entrance on the land side. Deep ditches cut in the rock surround the castle where that defence is necessary. From this fortress on the Rock of Harlech the view is magnificent. This crag is said to have supported a castle as early as the third century, when Lady Bronwen built it, and, being of most sensitive honor, died afterwards of grief because her husband had struck her. Unhappily, she was in advance of her age in her demonstration of woman’s rights. Another castle replaced the first one in the sixth century, and some of its ruins were worked into the present castle, which is another achievement of the great Welsh fortress-builder, Edward I. It has stood several sieges. Owen Glendower held it five years against the English. When Edward IV. became king, Harlech still held out for the Lancastrian party, the redoubtable Welshman, David ap Ifon, being the governor. Summoned to surrender, the brave David replied, “I held a town in France till all the old women in Wales heard of it, and now I will hold a castle in Wales till all the old women in France hear of it.” But David was starved into surrender, and then Edward IV. tried to break the terms of capitulation made by Sir Richard Pembroke, the besieger. Sir Richard, more generous, told the king, “Then, by Heaven, I will let David and his garrison into Harlech again, and Your Highness may fetch him out by any who can, and if you demand my life for his, take it.” The song of “The March of the Men of Harlech” is a memorial of this siege. Harlech was the last Welsh fortress during the Civil Wars that held out for Charles I., and since then it has been gradually falling to decay.

We have now conducted the tourist to the chief objects in North Wales. The railway runs on to Holyhead, built on the extreme point of Holy Island on the western verge of Anglesea, where there is a fine harbor of refuge, lighthouses, and an excellent port. Here comes the “Wild Irishman,” as the fast train is called that runs between London and Ireland, and its passengers are quickly transferred to the swift steamers that cross the Channel to Dublin harbor. Lighthouses dot the cliffs on the coast, and at this romantic outpost we will close the survey of North Wales.

“There ever-dimpling Ocean’s cheek Reflects the tints of many a peak, Caught by the laughing tides that lave Those Edens of the Western wave.”