dach,--Anglicé_, strong ale; and after a hearty supper of Welsh rabbit,
which Tom Ingoldsby calls a "bunny without any bones," and "custard with
mustard,"--which, as made in the Principality, it much resembles,--I
took a stroll through the town. It was a dull-looking place enough, and
as dirty as dull; every house was built with dingy gray stones, without
any reference whatever to cleanliness or ventilation; and as to the
civilization of the inhabitants, I saw enough to convince me, that, to
see real barbarism, an Englishman need only visit that part of Great
Britain called Wales. It was eight in the evening, and the day-laborers
at the furnaces had just left work. The doors of all the cottages were
open, and, as I passed them, in almost every one was to be seen a
perfectly naked stalwart man rubbing himself down with a dirty rough
towel, while his wife and grown-up daughters or sisters, almost as nude
and filthy as himself, stood listlessly by, or prepared his supper.

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