A near sight of the Bridge is generally sought for, and when one has climbed the railway embankment and walked along the line to its gloomy entrance, it can scarce be denied that the expedition is worth the while. There are the two parallel tubes for up and down lines, and above them the masonry of the Anglesey tower; on it deeply carved the name of Robert Stephenson and the date. On either side the colossal granite figure of an Egyptian lion crouches on its pedestal, guarding the approach, and with sphinx-like inscrutable gaze seeming to bide the coming of an appointed day. The impression of weird mysticism they give at twilight; the inky blackness of the two railway tubes in between; the evening mists gathering over the Snowdon heights in the background; and the last rays of the setting sun flushing the Britannia tower with a dusky red, is indescribable. Suddenly as one gazes, a hollow rumbling is heard, gradually increasing until with a hellish clang and the reverberation of a million echoes, a train dashes out, bringing with it a taste of the sooty air that lingers in the tubes, the product of fifty years, and abominably like that of an unswept chimney. But the curiosities of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll are not yet exhausted. One other remains, in the shape of a colossal granite statute of Lord Nelson, claimed to have been “designed” by Lord Clarence Paget, placed ridiculously on an undersized pedestal on the sea-weedy rocks by the Menai. It is, as a matter of fact, an exact copy of the well-known statue crowning the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, with empty sleeve pinned across the breast and cocked hat on head. Here, lonely in a meadow, beside the water he stands, with a very fine view of nothing in particular, and looking as though left to be called for. The curious who seek to know all about it may make the circuit of the slippery rocks and find the date 1873, and, facing the water, Nelson’s famous signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty.” But why the statue should find a place here, in so remote a spot, is not revealed. LV