The Visitor's Hand-Book for Holyhead: Comprising a History of the Town, the Antiquities and Sublime Scenery of the MountainJackson, Thomas
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The Visitor's Hand-Book for Holyhead: Comprising a History of the Town, the Antiquities and Sublime Scenery of the Mountain
Jackson, Thomas
Holyhead (Wales) -- Guidebooks
The huge mountain, towering from 700 to 800 feet above the level of the
sea, expanding its full breast, and showing its fine broad forehead, and
which, comparatively speaking, had slumbered for centuries, is at length
disturbed from its long repose, by “physical force.” A visit to this
scene of industry, which literally swarms with men and horses, is no
small treat. Tramways are laid in every direction, along which waggons
roll to the point where they are required. Locomotive engines of unique
design and requirements are continually at work, pouring their dense
smoke into the air, passing along with amazing velocity to the terminus
of the stage,—
Quick moves the balanced beam, of giant birth,
Wields his large limbs, and nodding shakes the earth.
The clang of the hammer of the blacksmith—the whirl of the wheel of the
grinding mill—the jerking of the punching machine, perforating thick
sheet iron, as easily as a lady would put her needle through
pasteboard—the buz in the engineers’ compartment—the pendulum-like tick,
tick, tick, of the strikers pursuing their monotonous vocations—the
enormous cranes, with their pullies, hooks, and ponderous weights
attached, demonstrating the laws of gravitation—the miners, deep buried
in the bowels of the mountain, the sound of whose strokes, forcibly
reminds one of the fairies of by-gone days—the signal-flags floating in
the breeze, and announcing in telegraphic language, “to all whom it may
concern,” that it is high time to take care of “number one”—the blasting,
which is on a most magnificent scale, report after report, making one
almost feel as if we were in the vicinity of an embattled plain, and
last, though not least, the strong, sleek, well-fed horses, prancing in
their furbished harness—all, all are before you and around you. Nor are
the workmen less striking and peculiar—the ease with which the most
unwieldy hammers are heaved by them attest their prodigious strength and
profound skill—some may be seen, high in the quarry, suspended by ropes,
reminding one of the bye-gone practice of egg-taking from the high cliffs
of the promontory, pushing down the rocks, loosened by the terrible
blasting, shouting to each other as if they gloried in their elevated
position—the engine drivers guiding their iron horses along the stages,
while the sea roars 60 feet beneath them, meeting each other on the up
and down lines, with all the pleasantry of stage-coach men of olden time;
fear is not in their vocabulary; though the yawning gulf is beneath them,
they sing, and smile, and whistle, as they sweep along the trembling
stage, as if seated in their respective cottages, with their playful
wives beside them, and their merry children round them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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