THE WATERS OF CADER IDRIS 



place. The southern courses could have been then 

 counted upon the fingers of two hands. But the 

 southerner was already inoculated, and we beheld the 

 coming boom as plain as daylight. But to the arbiters 

 of Towyn's destiny our urgent representations seemed 

 so much foolishness. So they spent thousands (the 

 great man did) in an effort, mostly vain I think, to 

 decoy the negro minstrel, the tripper, and the brass 

 band, where hundreds laid out on a golf-course would 

 have made a different place of it, and * the select ' fled 

 before the asphalt with its possibilities. Hinc illae 

 lachrymae of the patriotic chemist. The monstrous 

 blunder has been tardily rectified. Our old stamping- 

 ground, where we astonished the natives, and despite 

 the terrors of wandering black bulls of truculent char- 

 acter enjoyed ourselves, save perhaps on our im- 

 provised putting-greens, is now, I believe, what it 

 should have been made twenty-five years ago. But 

 to what purpose, speaking relatively ? For the coast 

 of Wales — north, west, and south — is now a chain of 

 golf links ! 



There was always, too, an annual cricket match 

 between the visitors and the local club, all working 

 men, whose mother and only tongue was Welsh. 

 There was something racy in playing a team who had 

 no English and whose captain placed his men and 

 shouted his instructions in the ancient tongue of the 

 Cymry. There was something more than risky in fac- 

 ing fast bowling on the local wicket. For myself, I 

 always looked forward with dread to the inevitable 

 encounter, and instead of a bold and cheerful mien 

 always walked to the wicket in a cold sweat. We had 



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