of the children of the village school, who were out for their quarter of an hour, did not make the affair less mysterious. When the village schoolmaster entered the school, however, he found it densely packed with sheep, and an old ram stood within the master's desk, chewing his cud, and regarding the sheep below him with an air of profound wisdom.

Twenty years ago sheep farming was a very profitable occupation. The owner of two thousand sheep would make from five to six hundred pounds every year from his sheep alone, and this would mean his rent three times over. Every hundred sheep would give him eighty fleeces,-for one fifth of the hundred would have lost most of their wool in their wanderings through the heather, or in their attempts to squeeze through hedges into forbidden pastures,the enclosed fields into which the sweet grass and fragrant clover tempted hungry sheep from the dry closely nipped mountain grass. The eighty fleeces,-honest fleeces, without any lamb's wool in them,--would bring in, say, seven pounds. Then a few ewes would be sold in May; lambs would be sold in August; and in September many wethers would be sold to lowland farmers for fattening, and ewes for breeding. Out of every hundred sheep, a wise sheep farmer would sell twenty pounds' worth every year, The secret of success in sheep farming is to know how to increase the flocks. In these times, mutton is much more marketable than wool. Many sheep farmers make the mistake of thinking that the way to increase the number of sheep is by keeping them. They are averse to selling, they keep the sheep till they get old, and do not make one fourth the money they ought to make out of their farms. The more you sell, the more you have," is a wise shepherd's saying. Sell, and they increase; keep them to get old, they will decrease under your hands; for, somehow or other, young sheep will not thrive when there are many old ones among them. This cardinal mistake is made oftenest by small sheep farmers, who know and love every sheep they possess.

Owing to foreign competition and rise in rents, the mountain sheep farmer is not

now the happy thriving being of twenty years ago. Then he could get fifteen or sixteen pence a pound for his wool, now he would be glad of an offer of sixpence ; then he could get twenty-two and sixpence for a wether, now he would gladly take thirteen shillings; then ewes were sold at sixteen shillings each, now they can be got for nine shillings; lambs then sold for ten shillings, now they sell for three and sixpence.

By these bal times, the sheep farmer is lucky that the prosperity of twenty years ago did not bring with it a very high rise in his standard of comfort. In the matter of clothes, undoubtedly, he spends more than his father spent, but his food is still of the poorest description. That delicious Welsh mutton he knows nothing of, he sells his sheep to those who have land for fattening them, and he hardly ever tastes fresh meat himself from one end of the year to another. He gets porridge in the morning, salt bacon or salt beef and potatoes at midday, tea and bread and butter in the afternoon, and porridge for supper. Oatmeal cakes are still very common, and red herrings are a welcome change when there is no salt meat of any description. But, owing to the bracing mountain air, this penurious diet does not seem to affect the sheep farmer for evil; and some of the older generation, brought up entirely on milk and porridge and oatmeal, are among the tallest and most handsome men in the world.

It is to be hoped that the decline in the prosperity of the mountain sheep farmer is only temporary. It is a most delightful and healthy occupation. Sheep-dipping day is an important day among the mountains. A lake is formed where the water is clear as crystal, and where the e is not a particle of mud at the bottom. The sheep are gathered into the sheepfold close by, and driven one by one towards the river. A strong, skilful shepherd takes hold of them, and the others watch the sheep plunging into the limpid waters, and emerging on the other side with its fleece as white as snow. Shearing day is more important still. The shearers sit in a row, underneath trees or a tall hedge,-for it is now well on in June, and the sun

is hot, and the dog-roses crown the hedges. All through the long summer day, the long row is busy at work, the click click of the shears sounding incessantly, and the talk never ceasing the while. Before the shearers, on the greensward, the fleeces are rolled up by the women, and a big white pile gladdens the eyes of the farmer, sitting at the end of the row, before night. Close by, the pitch-kettle hangs above a peat fire, and the ever ascending column of intensely blue smoke is in sharp contrast to the green of the trees and the fields dotted with the white newly-shorn sheep.

The farmer, if he is wise, gives his sheep hay before the hard weather comes in, so that they may be strong enough to stand it. But it is possible to undermine the morality of a sheep, and to destroy all the independence of its character. Sheep which habitually look to the hay-rick as their winter sustenance are very worthless; and that is the reason why families who have suffered from indiscriminate charity, and are dependent on the

declining industry that, in most cases, they will have to describe. At one time almost every mountain village was the centre of a group of tiny industries. But these have all disappeared, or are rapidly disappearing. In our village the old fulling mill has been in ruins for many years, though the stream of rushing water is ready to serve this generation as it has served so many generations before. The tenter poles have all disappeared from the sunny field, where they once stood in long rows, and to the school children of this age the very name of the field is a mystery. In old times the tenters had to be "in the eye of the light;" no man was allowed to have tenters in his own house, for fear he might stretch his cloths too much, with a view to selling them by measure. Close by is a field full of bulrushes. No one cares for the bulrushes now, but there was a time when they were

parish from generation to generation, are called "hay-rick sheep."

I very nearly forgot to mention the shepherd's dog. I did so because, in speaking of the shepher, I almost regarded man and dog as one being; they are so inseparable, and so necessary to each other. Fleet, sagacious, sleeping on the mountain side with one eye always open, ever on the alert for his master's whistle, understanding the tone of his voice and almost his words, --the shepherd's dog is proverbial for his faithfulness to his master and to his duties, as well as for his intelligence.

The wool is sold either to the few woollen manufacturers still remaining in Wales, or to the English manufacturers. The Welsh woollen industries, in picturesque Dolgellau or in lovely Newtown, will be described by other hands,-but it is a

used for deceiving people concerning the real colour of the manufactured cloth. Cork and chalk are no longer bought for deceitful

dyeing; "so deceivable," says an old statute, "that the same colours may in no wise abide, but fade away, to the great hurt of them that wear or occupy any such cloth so deceivably made." One kind. of dye is now in use in the few village factories where the wool is still made into cloth. It is got from a particular kind of lichen, and is a most beautiful variegated dye. The shepherd can vary his occupation by scraping the lichen from stones, and bringing it to the village to sell at dusk.

The shepherd's spare time is not given to eking out his scanty wages as a rule, though he could make a few pence a week in spring and summer by collecting plovers' eggs or by picking cranberries. He often devotes some of his leisure to reading, and some of the best poets of Wales have been shepherds. THOS. JONES, AND ANOTHER.

brooding, like a bird of ill omen, over the dreary stretch of country. Dewisland lies between the slate system of the north and the old red sandstone of the southern portions of Pembrokeshire.

As we cross

its plain, sloping gently towards the western sea, we cannot fail to notice the weird series of igneous rocks,-the Presely peaks, rising to a height of more than seventeen hundred feet, on the north; and the islands, between which the sea has eaten its way through the softer rocks, forming a rugged but picturesque border for the skirts of Wales. South and west the black rocks rise from the sea, their names often telling tales of the fearless Norse pirates who pushed their ships between them,-Skokholm, Skomar, Grasholm, the Smalls, the Bishop and his Clerks. They and the precipitous cliffs that face them failed, however, to protect St. David's shrine against destroyer after destroyer.

Dewisland is treeless, and this adds much to its apparent desolation. Trees will not live in the strong sea wind which blows so often and so fiercely, with its salty breath. Even the quick-set hedges gradually disappear, and stone walls take their places, as we advance west. But, in spite of all, this region is indescribably beautiful in its own way. Newgale, with all its sands and its gulls, in a setting of glowing purple heather, it comes up as fresh as ever in one's memory, giving never-ending delight. Farm houses in well-sheltered nooks, with their kind and inquisitive inhabitants, all quite wealthy in their way,

there are plenty of hospitable resting places. Around these houses, in the troughs of the undulating plain, the creamy-white queen of the meadow and the red and white fox-gloves grow luxuriantly, and the woodcock and the heron are no great strangers.

Whatever differences of opinion there may be about the beauty of the interior of Pembrokeshire, there can be no two opinions about the beauty of the coast. From it the views are glorious. The rocks above are often covered with gorse and heather, and the isolated rocks which rise from the waves are the haunts of myriads of birds. There is the cormorant and the

sea pie, the Cornish chough and the gannet, puffins and gulls innumerable, the razorbill (poethwy), and the common guillemot (eligug). If one is lucky, one may see the one bluish beautifully variegated egg of this latter bird, laid on the bare rock. If one is very fortunate indeed, it is said one might see the peregrine falcon, which is said to be an occasional visitor to this wild and lonely scene,-wild and lonely from a human point of view, but densely populated from a bird's point of view. Seals come to the caves, though I did not see any. But I saw the sea samphire blossoming on the rocks, and it brought a scene in Shakespeare to my mind,Stand still. How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half-way down Hangs one that gathers samphire,-dreadful trade."

It is an old saying that two pilgrimages to St. David's are as efficacious as a pilgrimage to Rome itself. A degenerate traveller of modern times has said that the pilgrimage is SO meritorious because travelling in so barbarous a country is so difficult. I found the journey most interesting and most pleasant. A Haverfordwest driver, whom I found excellent company, drove me from Haverfordwest to St. David's, a distance of sixteen miles, in less than three hours. In passing over the first half of the journey the hills were not very steep, and we rattled merrily along, the driver telling me all the characteristics of the Fleming English of this "little England beyond Wales." When we had passed Newgale sands the driver said that we were in Welsh Pembrokeshire. farmers in the Welsh district are very well off, he said; they are often freeholders, and all of them thrive and prosper in their own economic way. But he had his doubts about the clergy of St. David's, because, though there were so many of them, they had not succeeded, during all these years, in weaning the farmers and labourers from their radicalism.

The

When we had descended the steep hill to Solva we saw magnificent sea scenes occasionally, and before long I was told that St. David's was close by. It suddenly appeared before us as we were driving