ndon came by a
four-horse coach, which plied between Gloucester and Cardiff. I felt
rather miserable when I landed at the docks and looked at the sad expanse
of ground behind me and the Bristol Channel. A long street led up to the
town, with shabby houses on one side and a large expanse of marshy land
on the other. I had heard so much of the romance of Wales that when I
realised where I really was my heart quite sank within me. At the end of
St. Mary Street was a very primitive old town hall, where I gave a
lecture on "The Progress of the Nation," the only time I ever gave a
lecture in my life. The chairman was Mr. Vachell, father of the late Dr.
Vachell, an old resident in Cardiff, a man of considerable eminence in
the town--as he was supposed to be very wealthy--and in the Cardiff of
that day wealth was regarded as the only claim to respect; he, at the end
of my lecture, expressed an opinion favourable to my talents, but at the
same time intimating that he had no sympathy with much I had uttered.
Especially he differed from me in the estimate I had given of the "Rights
of Man," by Tom Paine. Once more I had an opportunity of lifting up my
voice in the Old Town Hall. It was on the subject of Teetotalism. My
opponent was a worthy, sturdy teetotaler known as Mr. Cory, whose sons
still flourish as the great coal merchants of our day. Cardiff was a
town of publicans and sinners, and I am sorry to say I secured an easy
triumph; and Mr. Cory created great laughter as he said, in the course of
his oration, that if he were shut up in a cask he would cry out through
the bunghole, "Teetotalism for ever!" He kept a place at the lower end
of the town to supply ships' stores, and was in every way, as I
afterwards found by the friendship that existed between us, a sterling
character.

Just opposite the Town Hall, on the other side of the way, was the
Castle, then in a very neglected condition, with a large enclosure which
was open to the public as a promenade. The street between them contained
the best shops in the town. It extended a little way to Crockherbtown on
one side and to the Cardiff Arms Hotel on the other, and then you were in
the country. Beyond the Cardiff Arms was a pleasant walk leading to
Llandaff Cathedral, then almost in a state of decay; and to Penarth a
charming hill, overlooking the Bristol Channel, on the other, with a
little old-fashioned hotel; much frequented in the summer. There was
only one g