Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"What do you say to a turn? We've time to have a look at the Dinas
before we go down....
"It's British, and the _Sixpenny Guide_ will tell you all that's known
about it--possibly more. Its foundations are said to have been sprinkled
with the blood of Merlin. What's left of it's certainly sprinkled with
these everlasting initials. The Trwyn Light's just behind, two reds and
a white, and they're experimenting with the Rocket Apparatus, but I
don't think that will come to much.--There's little Porth Neigr,
look--and that point thirty miles away's Abercelyn....
"Now the mountains are beginning to show; there they are--Delyn on the
left, then Moel Eryr, then Mynedd Mawr. That's Penyffestyn, with the
great cavity in his side, and his shadow's right across Bwlch.... Yes,
very fine, and a perfect evening for it. The posters at Euston don't
overstate it, do they? Of course, you've seen that very familiar one, of
a Welsh Giantess, shawl, apron, steeple hat and all the lot, holding a
view of Llanyglo in her arms? Pink hotels, indigo mountains and
chrome-yellow sands....
"There's the _Queen of the Waters_ coming in. If we wait a few minutes
longer we shall see the town light up. Yes, electricity; the
power-station was finished only last year; it's over there beyond the
filter-beds; Llanyglo handles its own sewage.... Ah! There goes the
Promenade lights; three jumps, and the two miles are lighted up from end
to end; the kite-string's a necklace now; pretty, isn't it?... And there
goes the Pier.... There'll be a glare behind us like a shout of light in
a moment--the Trwyn Light....
"The mountains are dark now, but how the day lingers on the sea!
To-night it's like ribbon-grass.... Hear the post-horns? Those are the
chars-à-bancs coming in. The last tripper's running for the station
now.... Now the light's dying on the sea; it's a new moon and a spring
tide. Two or three riding-lights only--I say, it's solemn out there....
But they'll be dining at the Majestic presently. That long golden haze
is Gardd Street, and that spangle at the end of it's the New Bazaar.
There goes the Big Wheel in the Kursaal Gardens, with its advertisement
on it. We might look in at the Dancing Hall to-night; that's rather a
sight. They have firework displays in the grounds, too, and last year
there was one out in the bay; they put bombs and flares and serpents on
rafts, and laid them from boats, like mines. That was in honour of the
Investiture of the Prince of Wales....
"We'd better take the tram down, I think; we might stumble and break our
necks....
"The other turnstile.--That kiosk place? That's the visitors' bureau.
They'll tell you quite a number of useful things there--cab fares,
porters' charges, time and tide tables, excursions and so on; but John
Willie Garden can tell you more interesting things than those. Don't
forget you're to meet him to-night....
"You're sure you can't dine with me? Very well. The Kursaal, then, on
the Terrace, at a quarter to nine...."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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