[Illustration: TENBY.] Tenby town is in many respects happy in what a local historian quaintly terms its 'approximation.' Turning its back upon the quarter whence blow the strongest gales, and sheltered by the high ground of the Ridgeway, that part of the town most frequented by visitors faces south by east across the land-locked waters of Carmarthen Bay. Hence a pleasant view is obtained of the opposite coast of Gower and the more distant highlands of North Devon; while Caldey Island lies like a breakwater against the waves of the open Channel. As shrewd old Leland observes: 'Tinbigh Town standith on a main Rokke, but not very by; and the Severn Se so gulfith in about hit that, at the ful Se, almost the third part of the Toun is inclosid with water.' Tenby can boast a fair sprinkling of good hotels and lodging-houses. The town is made further attractive as a place of residence by a well-appointed club, a circulating library, excellent public baths and a small museum of local interest. Last, but by no means least amongst its attractions, Nature has provided a broad expanse of firm, dry sands, much appreciated by children and bathers at holiday times. With a fair train-service upon the railway, good carriages and boats for hire, and steamboats calling at intervals, Tenby affords a convenient centre whence to explore the remoter recesses of South Pembrokeshire, for few and far between are the resting-places for the wayfarer in that rather inaccessible region. Dynbych-y-Pysgod--the Little Town of Fish--appears to have been a place of some importance from very early times. By the middle of the twelfth century we find the town in the hands of the Flemish soldiery; and subsequently disasters came thick and threefold upon the devoted inhabitants. During the reign of Henry II., Maelgwyn ap Rhys, a person who is euphemistically described as 'of civil behaviour and honesty in all his actions,' ascertaining that many of the townsfolk were absent at the foreign wars, made a sudden onslaught, set fire to the ill-fated town, and burnt it to the ground. Less than a century later the place was again taken and destroyed by Llewelyn ap Grufydd: and after a further respite of about 200 years, the notorious Owain Glyndwr appeared before the walls, laid siege to, and made himself master of the little Western seaport. Notwithstanding these misfortunes, 'the King's town of Tenby' henceforth grew and prospered unmolested. In 1402 Tenby was made a corporate town; and by the middle of the fifteenth century it had already become a centre of considerable trade and enterprise, encompassed by strong stone walls and towers built by Earl William de Valentia, Lord of Pembroke. The town walls are said to have been rebuilt by one Thomas White, the scion of a famous burgher family, who was Mayor of this ancient borough in 1457.