Time would fail me to tell of other journeys: bright May days with the fresh green of the larch on the hillside, and the glories of the chestnut and the wild flowers in the valleys. Hot June sunshine with azalea, and honeysuckle, and rhododendron; and the cool sea-breeze at night. July and August with the tripper in the land; crowded hotels, and noisy table d’hôte dinners; the grass is brown, and the trees have taken a uniform tint, and the rivers are low; except when torrential rains have fallen for three days, and made the Swallow Falls to rival Niagara. September comes, and the tripper ceases from tripping; the trees begin to put on their own colours again, and their autumn robes are magnificent: by the middle of October they are blazing in red and yellow; and towards the end of the month there is often snow on the hills, and below the snow the bracken is red. Then came wild drives in Welsh cars--a sort of clumsy “governess-cart,” now almost extinct--through rain and storm to remote villages in Merioneth, and Denbighshire valleys; and then frost and snow; and all travelling became a burden. Trains were very few on the Cambrian line in winter. The hotels were empty, but how glad the proprietors were to see any one! How amiable was the ever amiable landlady! Could I have a sitting-room? Yes, sure, there was No. 1. And a car to-morrow? Yes, indeed, to go anywhere. And Dobbin was reclaimed from the agricultural operations to which he had been devoted since the fall of the tripper. There was one journey from which I confess I shrank, and I regret it to this day. Off the far west coast of the Carnarvonshire peninsula called Lleyn, beyond the cape called Braich-y-Pwll, lies Bardsey Island. It is approachable by sailing-boat, if wind and tide are favourable; the distance from Aberdaron is about four miles, and one might choose one’s day. But, I was warned, if anything went wrong with the wind, I might be kept on the island for a week: Baedeker did not mark the principal hotel with a star of approval. The population was about fifty-two; there should be eight children of school age. There was a king; the queen was dead. Say one king, no queen, eight knaves, the rest plain; a strange pack. If I went there, and was detained for a week, I should have to charge the Treasury something over £16 for wages, railways, carriages, and boats; there would be reams of letters about it, and a Radical M.P. might bring it up in the House. “Can’t you let it alone?” said Lord Melbourne: so I did. But the next year I reported the facts to Whitehall. Meanwhile the Vice President had ruled that if the number of children anywhere, for whom no school accommodation was or could conveniently be provided, were less than twenty it was negligible. And it was agreed that the Bardsey King should take the trick, and the Deuce might take the Eight. Q.E.F.