The Argosy — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

Round about Barmouth. 125 way forming a quiet, solitary, and delightful walk, from whence to the heart’s content may be surveyed the beauties of Nature of almost every description : land, sea, mountains, valleys, lake. For the estuary, in its quiet ebb and flow, 1s calm and unruffled as a lake’s surface. The people, hike the town of Barmouth, strike one, at any rate at a first glance, as primitive and unworldlike: peculiarly so, considering how very much the place ts sought after, in a quiet way, during the summer months. Almost every shop seemed to be a mixture of at least two trades : stationer and grocer bemg an invariable combination. Not a few of the sign-boards were a source of amusement. One of the first to be noted ran as follows: JoHN OWENS. Tailor. Also Hair Cutter and Shaver. Surely under these conditions it cannot take nine Welsh tailors to make a man! Any unusual event is announced by means ofa crier, who announces his presence by a huge brass bell. (In a foreign town sacred to that happy period of life, our childhood’s recollections, this important ‘ functionary made known his mission with the aid of a huge brass pan ; which, struck vigorously with a gong-stick, sent forth a sound as of thunder amidst the elements.) This Barmouth bellman delivers his oration in Welsh; whilst at this deserted season of the year the dogs and cats come out to swell an otherwise very limited audience. One day the cats doubtless were especially interested in the announcement. By chance catching sight of an unfamiliar face at the window, the bellman, with a species of what I can only call Welsh grin, finished his speech in the native, and at once proceeded to deliver it in English with a decidedly Celtic accent, in the following words: “A very large quantity of fine fish and herrings to be sold immediately in the market- place.” I was told afterwards on authority I was too polite to question, that no sooner was this announcement given than a whole troop of cats ‘went careering off in a body to the market-hall. If this be true, then must it be that there is a School Board for catsin Wales. And we would, with the utmost deference and humility, bring it under the notice of that admirable Busy-body in England, whether they should not extend a little of their patronage, their philanthropic purposes and plans, and sublime notions, to these soft-coated grimalkins, and give less of it to the cultivation of Taste and the Musical Glasses to their youthful brethren in the gutters? Would that it were possible to give a minute and detailed description of the neighbourhood of Barmouth. Not a foot of progress would be found uninteresting. Especially remembered is the exceeding beauty of the drive from Barmouth to Dolgelly : even in spite of the day, which was cold, windy, grey, and at times rainy. In this drive ECOMRRIC OOO Ss (GO)