But words quite fail to describe Caerphilly--such a maze of grim walls and towers, such a network of ruinous apartments, piled deep with debris, overawe and confuse one. Only the antiquarian may painfully decipher the plan of the castle and in imagination reconstruct it as it was when it stood a bulwark between warring nations. But to the ordinary beholder it will remain a mystery set in the midst of the barren hills, and he will hardly care to resolve the impressive pile into its original parts. It will seem an entity to him--it is hard to think it otherwise than it appears today. Its romance is deepened by the obscurity of its history--for the story of Caerphilly has many blanks and breaks. There is no record of when it was first begun and there is doubt as to when it was finally destroyed. Some say the ruin is the work of Cromwell, and it surely seems worthy of that master of the art of wrecking castles; others declare that it was abandoned at the time of the Commonwealth, having been destroyed by Shakespeare's "Wild irregular Glendower," in his endless conflicts with the English. But after all, does it not savor even more of romance that mystery enshrouds the past of the stupendous structure whose scanty remnants encircle us? Why call upon prosaic history to dispel the charm that emanates from the gray ruin, half hidden by its mantle of ivy and dashed here and there with the purple valerian and yellow wall-flower? Such would be folly indeed as we sit on the soft green turf of the court and contemplate the fantastic outlines in the glow of the sunset; when all is silence save for the angry brawls of the rooks, which have entered into full possession--reincarnations, perhaps, of the erstwhile contentious owners. But the spell of Caerphilly dissolves and a different world surrounds us as we enter the broad modern streets of Cardiff and pause before the American-looking Park Hotel. Cardiff as a village antedates the Conquest, but as a metropolis of two hundred thousand, it is quite recent. One hundred years ago it had a population of a thousand; in 1837, of ten thousand; and it is easy to see that the traces of antiquity in such a city must be few. Its future was assured when the first Marquis of Bute hazarded his entire fortune in the construction of the extensive docks from which shipments of coal and iron are now made. It was a lucky throw of the die for the nobleman, for today his grandson owns the greater part of Cardiff and is one of the wealthiest men in the Kingdom.