It is quite certain that the tourist who in these times should tour in that quaint guise would be mobbed, for, in addition to his weird nether garments, the gay young man of 1860 or thereabouts wore a felt hat like a pudding basin, with a flat brim and a button on the crown. Complete the picture with an eyeglass and a pair of “Piccadilly weepers,” and there you are. Yet they were consummate lady-killers, or so imagined themselves to be, and a reflection of their deathly oglings is found in these pages. “Look out for the girl in the village, just beyond the gate—such a stunner!” says one. (“Stunner” was a word characteristic of the sixties.) It is quite evident that those who followed took this amatory pilgrim’s advice, for “Not equal to our Mary Ann, though,” is appended by some disappointed swain. Girl, gate, and pilgrims, where are they, and where is the Bettws of that era? Gone, my friends, and only the immemorial hills and these ragged visitors-books remain. For Bettws has been entirely rebuilt since then, and the “gate” referred to was brutally swept away some ten years since. Brutally, because it was an ivy and creeper-clad old toll-house, one of the charmingest landmarks in the place. It stood at the corner leading to Pont-y-Pair, where a boarding-house called “Carleton House” may now be seen. But to return to our visitors-books. The verses found in them would scarce grace a poetic garland, but here is a sample, _circa_ 1860:— Good reader, supposing you’ve looked through this book, Some fair verses no doubt you have read; Some good sketches, with bad ones—the latter but few; But did soliloquy enter your head? How many are left who their names have inscribed In a mood both happy and free? How many in Britain, how many abroad? Some sleep ’neath the old willow tree. A later scribbler appropriately asks this poet to “Cheer up!” He is followed by one who rhymes “spruce” with “Bettws,” which is a very close approximation to the correct pronunciation. Then comes the “Marquis of Alicampane,” and later a critic who implores some heterographical guest, “_Do_ cultivate a taste for spelling.” Then comes a shapeless scribble, signed and priced by some wag, “J. M. W. Turner, £450.” The fate that follows distinguished visitors who gravely and pompously enter their names is seen in the comments on the entry, “Sir William Barlow, K.C.B., and Lady Barlow.” There was at that period a popular song called “Billy Barlow,” and with the hint thus afforded some idle artist has drawn in the margin his ideas of Sir William and his lady. They are not flattering.