We join the throng in the street and stroll leisurely down the long incline. The whole town tips that way. A variety of more or less quaint vehicles move about—cabriolets drawn by donkeys and ponies; sedan chairs; a species of easy-chair on wheels, with a wooden apron, and propelled by a boy or a decayed footman in seedy livery with bibulous habits written on his face. Something of a similar sort was seen at the Centennial, yet utterly unlike this, notwithstanding a resemblance in principle. These invalid go-carts are very convenient at Tenby, as they may be trundled everywhere, even on the sands, which are hard and flat. A peculiarity of all the vehicles, even those drawn by two animals, is that they go slower, as a rule, than on-foot people do. Briskly-walking couples and groups of English and Welsh ladies pass us, carrying over their arms bathing-dresses or towels, with the business-like alacrity of movement characteristic of most Britons on their feet. No one saunters except ourselves. All are hastening to the south sands, looking neither to the right nor the left; but for us there are eye-lures in every direction. The town abounds with antiquities calculated to awaken the liveliest interest in a stranger: every street is rich with romantic story; every hill and rock for miles around has its legend, its ruin of castle, abbey or palace, or its[page 192] mysterious cromlech,—all that can most charm the soul of the antiquary; and Shakespeare has honored this corner of Wales beyond others by putting it in one of his tragedies. Considerable portions of the ancient town-wall are standing, with the mural towers and gateways. In the parish church, which we pass, are some most interesting monuments of the early half of the fourteenth century, but the Tenbyites look upon their church as rather a modern structure, as churches go in Wales. They point out the place where John Wesley preached in the street in 1763, when the mayor threatened to read the riot act. There is still a law in Wales against street-preaching, but it is not often enforced, unless the preacher happens to be drunk—an incident not altogether unknown.
The old stone pier abounds with seafaring characters in holiday rig, very picturesque to American eyes. They knuckle their foreheads and remove their pipes as we pass, and by attitudes and gestures which would inform a deaf-mute invite us to take a sail on the bay. They do not audibly offer their services, for the municipal laws forbid them to, but their figureheads are mutely eloquent. Here is one who might be put right on the stage as he stands as the typical jolly Jack Tar of the nautical drama. He wears a red liberty-cap, and a nose which matches it to a shade. His jersey is blue and low in the neck, and his trousers are of that roominess supposed to be necessary for nautical purposes. Other mariners about him are quite as interesting. Occasionally one is seen whose rig is so neat he might have stepped out of a bandbox, but, though he is an ornamental mariner, he is not a Brummagem one. These fellows all know storm and danger and severe toil as common acquaintances. The neatest of them are understood to be residents here, with wives or mothers who strive hard to keep them looking nice in the fashionable season; and in blue flannel shirt with immense broad collar, another broad collar of white turned over that, hat of neat straw or tarpaulin with upturned rim and bright blue ribbon, they form a feature of attractiveness which has no counterpart at American seaside resorts. The rougher mariners, if not so handsome, are still most picturesque: they are chiefly fishermen from the Devonshire coast, who sail over here to take the salmon, mackerel, herrings, turbots, soles, etc. which so abound at Tenby. The spot still bears out, in spite of its modern glories as a watering-place, its ancient renown as a fishing-point, which was so great that the old-time Britons called it Denbych y Piscoed ("the hill by the place of fishes").
On the Castle Hill we find a great company gathered, looking down on the still greater company which is gathered on the yellow sands. Children are climbing and rolling on the soft greensward of the terraces, and adults are sprawling at full length, completely at their ease. Men and women lounge to and fro on the sea-wall promenade, a miniature of the Hyde Park throng at mid-season. Others sit reading or chatting or looking out over the sparkling sea. The grass and crags are dotted with azure and purple flowers, and cushions of pink and white stone-crop abound. Higher up the hill stand the ivied ruins of the Norman castle, and the white memorial monument to Prince Albert, with its sculptured panels bearing the arms of Llewellyn the Great, the red dragon of Cadwalader, the symbolical leek and the motto, Anorchfygol Ddraig Cymru ("The dragon of Wales is invincible"). The air is very cool and bracing on this hill. But the greatest crowd is on the sands and on the rocks of the cliff immediately backing the beach. It is difficult for one who is familiar only with the beach at Long Branch or Cape May to comprehend such a scene as this which I am trying to picture. In the first place, the field is so entirely different from that at home; and in the second place, the bathing population of the town is not broken up into a number of hotel communities and cottage communities, but is all gathered at one spot. It is true some residents on the north cliff bathe on the north sands, but they come to the south sands after[page 193] they have had their dip, to meet le monde. There is room here for le monde too; and the groups not only sprinkle the wide yellow plain, but they are perched about on the face of the cliff in grottos and on jutting crags; they are grouped in the cool shade of rocky caverns at the precipice's base; they are leaning on the battlemented walls that crown its summit. The water is a considerable distance from where the people sit, and minute by minute, as the time passes, it recedes farther and farther, until at last it is a long walk away. The gay hues of red-coated soldiers assist feminine attire in enlivening the scene with color. Children in great numbers are scampering about, and busying themselves, much as they do at home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers, bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band—the members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless red-and-gold caps—is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which backs the sands in one place. Listen to the tunes! Heard you ever these peculiar airs before? The "Bells of Aberdovey" jangle their sweet chime over the wind-blown scene. The "March of the Men of Harlech" fills all the air with its stirring scarlet strain. The quaint melody of "Hob y deri dando" moves the feet of youth to restlessness: not that it is a jig, in spite of the jiggy look of the words to English eyes, but because it has been twisted into the service of Terpsichore by a famous band-master in his "Welsh Lancers." "Hob y deri dando" is a love-song:
All the day I sigh and cry, love,
Hob y deri dando!
All the night I say and pray, love,
Hob y deri dando!*
* This phrase is sometimes supposed to be the original of the English "Hey down, derry, derry down!" but the old Druidic song-burden, "Come, let us hasten to the oaken grove," is in Welsh "Hai down ir deri dando," which is nearer the English phrase.
A hand-organ with monkey attachment is delighting a group of children on another part of the sands. Yonder, too, is a balladist with a guitar, bawling at the top of his lungs,
The dream 'as parst, the spell his broken,