As in America, so in Wales, almost every public matter is provocative of a procession, and the proceedings of the Festival commenced with one.  No doubt, it was to the eyes of the many, who from scores of miles round had travelled to witness it, a very imposing and serious demonstration; but anything more ridiculously amusing it was never my good fortune to see.  I had, however, to keep all my fun to myself, for Welshmen are not to be trifled with.  Any one who wishes to be convinced of this need only walk into a Welsh village, singing the old child-doggerel of

  “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,
  Taffy came to my house and stole a piece
    of beef,” etc.,

and, my life on it, he will not leave it without striking proofs of Welsh sensitiveness, and voluble illustrations of some Jenny Jones’s displeasure.  By no means inclined to subject myself to such inconvenient experiences, I prudently kept my eyes wide open and my mouth shut,—­or if I spoke, I merely asked questions, by which means I acquired necessary information and passed off for a gratified stranger and an admiring spectator.

All the resources of the town and its neighborhood, and indeed of the county itself, had been exhausted to give due effect to the parade, of which I regret to say that I cannot hope to give any adequate description.  All the usual elements of processions were to be seen.  Bands of music,—­there were at least a dozen of them, all playing different pieces at one and the same moment, which had a somewhat distracting effect on those sensitively-eared people who weakly prefer one air at a time and do not appreciate tuneful tornadoes.  As the procession went by at a brisk pace, it was curious enough to notice how the last wailing notes of “A noble race was Shenkin,” played by a band in advance, blended with the brisk music of “My name’s David Price, and I’m come from Llangollen,” performed by a company in the rear.  In fact, it was a genuine Welsh musical medley, and the daring genius who would have occupied himself in “untwisting all the links which tied its hidden soul of harmony,” would have had about as difficult and distressing a task as he who tried to make ropes out of sea-sand.

Of course, these bands were made up of divers instruments, but the national harp was head and chief of them all, as might naturally have been expected in such a place and at such a time.  There were harps of all sorts and shapes; some of the Welsh urchins had even Jews-harps between their teeth.  There were Irish harps, English harps, and Welsh harps.  There was no Caledonian harp, though; but a remarkably dirty fellow in the procession seemed to be making up for the lack of one stringed instrument by bringing another,—­the Scotch fiddle!—­on which he perpetually played the tune of “God bless the gude Duke of Argyle!” There were harps with one, two, and three sets of strings,—­harps with gold strings, silver strings, brass strings,—­strings