Glad to escape from such disgusting objects, I hurried back to the Bush and to bed.  But not to rest, though; for during that long, miserable night, the eternal rattle of machinery, clattering of hammers, whirling of huge wheels, and roaring of blast-furnaces completely murdered sleep.  Never, for one instant, did these sounds cease,—­nor do they, it is said, the long year through; for if any accident happens at one of the five great iron-works, there are four others which rest not day nor night.  Little, however, is this heeded by the people of Merthyr; they are lulled to repose by the clatter of iron bars and the thumping of trip-hammers, but are instantaneously awakened by the briefest intervals of silence.

Glad enough was I, the next morning early, to cross an ink-black stream and leave the town, and pleasant was it to breathe the free, fresh mountain air, after inhaling the foul smoke of the iron-works.  Towards the close of the afternoon, after a delightful walk, a great portion of it on the banks of the picturesque river Usk, we came in sight of Abergavenny, where the Cymreiggddyon was to be held.

The first of the glorious three days was duly ushered in with the firing of cannon, ringing of bells, and all kinds of extravagant jubilation.  It wasn’t quite as noisy as a Fourth of July, but much more discordant.  Strings of flags were suspended across the streets,—­flags with harps of all sorts and sizes displayed thereon,—­flags with Welsh mottoes, English mottoes, Scotch mottoes, and no mottoes at all.  In front of the Town Hall was almost an acre of transparent painting,—­meant, that is, to be so after dark, but mournfully opaque and pictorially mysterious in the full glare of sunshine.  As far as I could make it out, it was the full-length portrait—­taken from life, no doubt—­of an Ancient Welsh Bard.  He was depicted as a baldheaded, elderly gentleman, with upturned eyes, apparently regarding with reverence a hole in an Indian-ink cloud through which slanted a gamboge sunbeam, and having a white beard, which streamed like a (horse-hair) “meteor on the troubled air.”  This venerable minstrel was seated on a cairn of rude stones, his white robe clasped at his throat and round his waist by golden brooches, and with a harp, shaped like that of David in old Bible illustrations, resting on the sward before him.  In the background were some Druidical remains, by way of audience; and the whole was surrounded by a botanical border, consisting of leeks, oak-leaves, laurel, and mistletoe, which had a very rare and agreeable effect.  Nor were these hieroglyphical decorations without a deep meaning to a Cambrian; for while the oak-leaf typified the durability of Welsh minstrelsy, the mistletoe its mysterious origin, and the laurel its reward, the national leek was pleasantly suggestive of its usual culinary companions, Welsh mutton and toasted cheese.