The Argosy — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Round about Barinouth. 123 during this royal progress would be untenanted, and for a few moments Barmouth was lively. It was my fate now and then to encounter this cavalcade on my way to the post-office, and all I could do was to salute it with grave respect and back hastily into some sheltering doorway. To me, fresh from the bustle of London, there was something sooth- ing in the quiet of Barmouth ; in the air; in watching the breaking of the waves as they surged monotonously over the sand. Something inexpressibly soothing and calming in patrolling to and fro upon these same sands; now contemplating the hills in their silent majesty; so great, yet so still and immovable ; now turning at the end of the beat, to a full view of the sea, ever restless, ever changing. At Barmouth the sea is beautiful in its repose, but monvtonous and lifeless. You are able here to realize thoroughly how much the passing ships upon the ocean add to the interest and animation of its vast surface. The sea here is, after all, little more than a bay, confined as it is by the boundary of the distant hills; you grow weary of watching it; weary of longing for a sail, or even the ghost of a boat, though it were but the shade of the Flymg Dutchman. Not one was sighted during the whole of my sojourn. Nothing reigned but silence; the silence almost of the grave; upon the water and amongst the surrounding hills. No matter how long I might thus, as it were, stand guard, I had to myself the whole great space and waste. Not a human creature to be seen; not a footprint upon the sand, save those in the track of my dreary beat. Yet it proved, after all, a grateful experience to a restless spirit. Barmouth itself 1s primitive in appearance, consisting chiefly of one long street, whilst houses are dotted here and there on the mountains, one above another. But the term mountain to those familiar with the mountains of Germany, with the Alps and the jagged Dolomites, will "seem an exaggeration. To mention the commissariat department, for the benefit and enlightenment of those interested in the subject, provi- sions were admirable in Barmouth. Bread, butter, milk, perfectly pure and unadulterated : beef is somewhat coarse, so that the changes have to be rung upon poultry and mutton, both of which are so unusually excellent, that the easily contented mind found in these a continual ’ feast of sufficient variety. The fresh herrings have a peculiar delicacy of their own which places them above all other herrings of all other places ; and the whiting, thanks partly perhaps to the skill of as good " as a professed cook, attained the dignity of a delicacy. In these days of adulterated food, this item is one which adds greatly to the comfort of a visit to Barmouth. Standing on the bridge with your back to the sea, you gaze upon a view hardly to be surpassed for beauty. At your feet the calm waters of the estuary, stretching around you for a great distance, lap the foot of the hills. Around and before you, in the form of an amphitheatre, are the same hills, of all sizes and shapes, with the most waving undula- ECOMICOOOKS. CO