BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 71 



indeed ! been in the 'ouse a week " — but we thought 

 this would be high tea with a vengeance, and 

 accepted the inevitable in its usual form of " 'am- 

 an'-ecks." We can no longer refrain from mention- 

 ing that there are two things in Wales, yea, three, 

 which the traveller would do well to avoid, and 

 yet can hardly hope to escape from — butter, bacon, 

 coffee, — all are bad, even odious ; the bacon salt, 

 tough, stringy ; the butter yellow, coarse, and, if 

 possible, more salt than the bacon ; the coffee a 

 shade worse than the ordinary drug supplied by 

 the British hotel-keeper — and what has already 

 been referred to as the narrow English language 

 holds no epithet that will fitly stigmatise British 

 hotel coffee. 



It was past seven o'clock when the reckoning 

 was paid, and we could have wished we were going 

 to stay on in the little parlour with the German 

 coloured prints, and the clatter of Welsh outside 

 in the kitchen, but it could not be. Already 

 the ascent of Snowdon was coming into the near 

 future, a matter of the day after to-morrow, and 



