ndon in those old
coaching days than New York is in these days of steamships. Even years
after railroads found their way into Wales, Tenby remained remote
and was approachable only by coach; but now you can step into your
railway-carriage in London and trundle to Tenby without change between
your late breakfast and your late dinner.

Probably no seaside watering-place known to the polite world contrasts
so strongly with the typical American watering-place as does this
Welsh resort. Not at Brighton, not at Biarritz, not at any German spa,
will the tourist find so complete a contrast in every respect to Long
Branch or Newport. Tenby is almost _sui generis_. A watering-place
without a wooden building in it would of itself be a novelty to an
American. Our summer cities consist wholly of wooden buildings, but
Tenby, from the point of its ponderous pier, where the waves break as
on a rock, to the tip of its church-spire, which the clouds kiss, is
every inch of stone. Welshmen will not build even so insignificant a
structure as a pig-sty out of boards if there are stones to be had. I
have seen stone pig-sties in Glamorganshire with walls a foot thick
and six hundred years old. There is not a wooden building in Tenby.
The station-buildings are "green" (as the Welsh say of a new house),
but they are solid stone.

Alighting from the railway-carriage in which you have come down from
London, you are greeted with no clamor of bawling hack-drivers and
hotel-omnibus men roaring in stentorian tones the names of their
various houses. Three or four quiet serving-men in corduroy
small-clothes and natty coats touch their hats to you and look in your
face inquiringly. They represent the various hotels in Tenby, and at
a gesture of assent from you one of them takes your bags, your wraps,
whatever you are burdened with, and conducts you to a somewhat
antiquated vehicle which bears you to your chosen inn through some
gray stony streets, under an ivy-green archway of the ancient
town-wall; and as the vehicle draws up at the inn-door the beauty of
Tenby lies spread suddenly before you--the lovely bay, the cliffs,
the sands, the ruined castle on the hill, the restless sea beyond. A
handsome young person in an elaborate toilet as regards her back hair,
but not otherwise impressive in attire, comes to the door of the hotel
to meet you, and gently inquires concerning your wishes: that you
have come to stay in the house is a presumption which no pr