unshine and crowned with
gorgeous clouds, or silvery mists. The dark-waving foliage of many a
shadowy glen and rocky gorge seemed beckoning to us to search into
their lovely, lonely places, and many a glad rill and wild cascade
seemed to call to us to come and look upon its unsunned beauty. But
the swift locomotive remorselessly whirled us away from glen and gorge,
and its rush and clang soon drowned those pleasant mountain voices of
dancing rivulet and laughing waterfall.

We hardly caught a breath of the free, fresh air of the hills, in
exchange for the long, brown train of heavy, hot smoke we left behind
us;--in truth, puffing and whirling in and out of the Principality, as
we did, I am almost ashamed to count Wales as one of the countries I
have seen.

In England, no town, however large it may be, is called a city, unless
it has a Bishop and a Cathedral, as the capital of an Episcopal See.
Thus the great seaport of Liverpool is only a _town_, while St. Asaph,
with but one street and eight hundred inhabitants, is a _city_.

The first Bishop of St. Asaph was St. Kentigern, a famous monk and
monk-maker, and founder of monasteries. He had a disciple by the name
of Asaph, whom he brought up to be a Saint.

Legends say that one day the good Bishop got severely chilled by
remaining in his bath too long, and young Asaph, not having any shovel
or tongs, took up some live coals in his hands, and carried them to his
master, without burning himself at all. People said this was a very
fair beginning for a Saint, and as he continued to improve, the church
canonized him when he died, and the city and diocese were named for him.

Near St. Asaph is Rhyddlan Castle--the place where Edward I. outwitted
the Welsh nobles, by proposing that they should be ruled by a _native_
Prince, whose character nobody could say a word against. All joyfully
agreed, and then he presented to them his infant son, born at Carnarvon
Castle, and whom he had made Prince of Wales.

At Conway, we passed close by a grand old castle, still very strong and
imposing, though it was built by Edward I. Here we crossed the Tubular
Bridge--a great curiosity--but far from equal to the Britannia Bridge,
across the Menai Straits, which lie between Wales and the Island of
Anglesea. I cannot describe this to you--but it is one of the most
wonderful works in all the world.

Holyhead is a small town, on an island of the same name--divided by a
narrow strait fro