WALES TENBY-COPPER AND IRON WORKS. 211 cold standing;-this is delightful for the middle of July, when the people of New York are dying. with heat. July 16. Tenby. Ninety-one miles in two days, through a hilly but rich country, affording continually vast views of cultivation, a surface chequered with fields and hedges, and studded over with white dots, the outside of cottages, roofs and chimneys, and even the very stones on the road near the houses being fresh white-washed. There is no particular beauty in all this on near inspection, but distance ennobles and harmonizes all; and many of the views, without woods, without rocks, or high mountains, and without water, were still highly beautiful, and almost sublime. Very few commons or waste grounds were to be seen; those few had sheep and a vast number of young asses grazing about; these, with their long ears and small bodies, and their vivacity, gave the idea of rabbits in a warren, And they would toss their heels in gamesome play Near Swansea we visited the copper and iron works. They were just opening a smelting furnace; the fused copper, in a little stream of liquid fire, flowed along a channel towards a cistern full of water; we saw it approach with terror, expecting an explosion; instead of which the two liquids met very amicably, the water only simmering a little. The workmen looked very sickly: we found, on inquiry, their salary was but little higher than that of common labourers. It is remarkable, that, much as men are attached to life, there is no consideration less attended to in the choice of a profession than salubrity. 212 WALES RAIL-WAYS AND WAGGONS. We came in sight of the sea several times today. It blew fresh on shore, but there was not much surf, from being, I suppose, a confined sea. Single trees, oaks particularly, are in general very much bent, almost horizontally, from the sea; that is to say, the stem is, while the bows and leaves turn towards it. Large woods, covering steep ascents facing the sea, we observed growing strait and thriving; the trees protect each other, or the height behind obliges the sea air to pass over their heads. We crossed several iron rail-ways, leading from founderies and coal-mines in the country to the sea. Four low cast-iron wheels run in an iron groove lying along the road. It is now, however, the general custom to place the groove on the circumference of the wheel, running upon the rail, which is a mere edge of iron, upon which no stone or other impediment can lodge. Five small waggons, and sometimes six, fastened together, each carrying two tons of coal, are drawn by three horses, that is, four tons to each horse, besides the weight of the waggon,-about five or six times as much as they could draw on a common road; on an ascent the waggons are separated. The rocks of Tenby are worn by the sea into the most fantastic shapes, and pierced through and through, in several places, like gateways; and at low water carriages drive close to the sea upon a firm beach. The town is built along the summit of the cliff, and in the finest situation imaginable, but the houses turn their backs and blind sides to this glorious prospect, having windows only to look at each other, across a narrow dirty street. The use these Hottentots make of the beetling brow of the cliff, the very place for poetical raptures and philosophical contemplation, is too vile to be nam |