112 



AJUs HtiUon*s Tour through North iVale$. 



An honest Welsh clergyman complained 

 to me that tlie English moimtaiu-huiitcrs 

 bad made his country so deai- that lie 

 could not afford to live iii it. Four or 

 five of the principal inns on the great 

 road arejkept by Englishmen, who set 

 9a example to the natives. These 

 houses are only inferior to the best Eng- 

 lish inns in the triiling considerations of 

 convenience, eating, and attendance ; in 

 the material one of expence they are 

 much the same. The English travellers 

 will improve the country, and spoil the 

 iniiabitants. One instance of English 

 munificence I heard to-day from the 

 poor old barber who shews the castle : 

 he had gone over it with thiee gentle- 

 men, who had given him three half- 

 crowns for his trouble. He would glad- 

 ly have mowed the beards of ninety of 

 his countrymen for that sum ; but be 

 vill think himself ill-paid if the next 

 three gentlemen who see the castle give 

 him thjee shillings. 



The introduction of travellers and 

 riches hag made an odd jumble in the 

 iiess of the middling class of women at 

 Caernarvon. They mingle the cotton 

 manufactures of JVIanchester with (heir 

 own wool, and often hold up a gown 

 with all the colours of tiie rainbow to 

 display a striped woollen petticoat. 

 T!ie poor women arc invariably clad in 

 a woollen bedgown and petticoat. Some 

 have coarse shoes and uo stockings ; 

 many have stockings that reach to the 

 foot, and fasten by a loop round the 

 second toe, and no shoes. Patched gar- 

 ments are often seen, ragged ones scarce- 

 ly ever. 



I'he market at Caernarvon is much 

 crowded, but many of the articles of 

 sale are not regularly supplied. Money 

 will not always purchase what is to be 

 disposed of: a poor woman brought a 

 basket of eggs to our lodgings, which 

 ghe wanlcd to barter for yeast ; and ano- 

 ther basket of eggs was only to be ex- 

 changed for old linen to dress an infant, 

 tliat the owner expected soon to bring 

 into the wwld. 



On a market day the country people 

 pour into Caernarvon on horseback, 

 six women, at least, to one man. Some- 

 times the poncy carries wooden boxes 

 with covers, sometimes coarse wicker 

 panniers, sometimes tlie woman has 

 only a basket on her arm ; but I have a 

 notion it often happens that the whole 

 lading is not wortii half-a-crown. If she 

 be a poor woman, she turns her horse 

 loose into a wide part of the street, from 

 whence he is never known to stray ; if 



[Sept. 1, 



one of the better sort, she pays a penny 

 for his standing in a small paddock. In 

 either case he waits for her ready bridled 

 and saddled, till the afternoon or even- 

 ing. Oats are a luxury the poor beasts 

 never know, they are meat for their maii- 

 ters ; and, I believe, the horses are ne- 

 ver indulged with a morsel of hay whilf 

 it is possii)le for skin and bone to pick fi 

 scanty subsistence mS the ground. The 

 country people carry back the small 

 part of their apparel that their own 

 spiiining-wheels, and their own weaver, 

 canuot supply, the few luxuries they 

 can iilford to purchase, and any of their 

 neighbours who may chance to be on 

 foot. Sparing the poor animals is au 

 idea that never enters their minds. 



Mutton and beef are 6d. a pound, 

 veal 5d., salmon 5d. and 6d., fine Hour 

 3Jd., butter SJd. to 9id., and potatoes 

 two pounds and a half for a penny : 

 chickens are from 4d. to 8d. a-piecc, 

 ducks from 8d. to lOd., rabbits 6d., an4 

 eggs a halfpenny : but the difficulty is to 

 get these things. Meat is plentiful on 

 a Saturday, but is scarcely to be had oa 

 any other day. Poultry is scarcely to be 

 had on any day ; rabbits can only be had 

 by chance. I'ish depends upon an un- 

 certain element ; and rabbits depend oa 

 the facility of crossing it, as they coni? 

 from Anglesey. Buttermjlk and potar 

 toes never fail. 



Not one of the country people undor- 

 sland a word of English. If you send a 

 servant to market, he must find an inter- 

 preter in the street ; and, if provisions 

 are offered at the door, he must call up 

 one of the maids of tlie house to trans- 

 act the business. Many of them, how- 

 ever, are not ignorant of the practice, 

 common to every tongue and kindred, 

 of extorting a higher price from stran- 

 gers than the current value of the thing 

 to be sold. 



The grand article of commerce at 

 Caeruanon is the slates, which aro 

 brought down from the mountains in 

 carts, and piled up, by millions, on the 

 quay, waiting their turn to be shipped 

 off. 



The weather, since we have been 

 here, has been one continued storni. 

 Snowdon, though only nine miles dis- 

 tant, cannot be seen from Caernarvon, 

 or any place in its immediate vicinity, 

 being intercepted by a large round 

 smooth mountain, called Moel Elian. I 

 pay my daily devotions to one of his 

 sons from the top of a rocky hill, that 

 rises at the back of the hotel, and think 

 myself very foituuats if tlie cloiids per- 

 mit 



