Welsh Journals

cycle paths. Along every kilometre every man and woman is toiling intensively. "In the sunny, scorched South of France, the land of the vineyards, the metayage system exists, and here is intensive cultivation mingling with extensive cultivation, here is still the stamp of Feudalism. "In the dry, monotonous land of Don Quixote you understsand that nothing has been tarted and nothing finished. All is monotonous pleas- ure and monotonous toil "In the American country of concrete fences and wheat prairies, of wooden homesteads and steel grain elevators, of gigantic railroad depots unfenced and unprotected, all is vast organisation barely conceived. "But in Wales the extension of cultivation is finished. "Is not this because her sons make their vast fortune from the sale of coal and require only milk and mutton and cheap wheat? And as cheap wheat can only be produced by large scale cultivation, if Wales grew her own wheat, would it be that there might not be enough green fields left to feed the sheep and cows? "I can think of no other explanation for all these green fields. "Something like the Biscian coast is the Car- diganshire coast. Pleasant are the light grey, undulating cliffs, snug in tiny homeliness the lit- tle coves and inlets, and placidly the sea caresses the feet of the cliffs, the sea of green, blue and violet transparence in the rocky shallows. "So I came to Llangranog. "Beyond Ireland was the sun now, and like a wineglass rapidly emptying itself was the sea and sky. And darkness and stillness was in the lanes of the high hedges, and the last shadow had been drawn across the hills of the narrow valley that goes down to Llangranog: no more was there sunlight. "When evening descends and I am alone walk- ing through the streets of a foreign port, a strange empty feeling wells up in my stomach and a thrill of loneliness passes through my whole body. But when evening descends and I am alone in a foreign village I am filled at once with fear and apprehension. It was with fear and apprehension that I descended into Llangranog. "The sea muttered only to the village it did not recognise me here the old people in the doorways eyed me with inquisitive suspicion the young men and women congregated on the sea front regarded me with critical suspicion the girls laughed loudly at my Spanish beret. "Mostly fair were the boys and girls, not dark as I supposed all the Welsh to be, fair just like the Norwegians, having the fresh complexion and pale, clear eyes of the northern seas. 'Please I ask you to direct me to the house of Captain Davies?' 'Which Captain Davies? Which one do you want?' 'Captain Davies of Llangranog,' I replied, 'Well there is a Captain Davies living in that house just there.' "But he was not the Captain Davies, my friend. 'Go to the second house around the corner,' directed that Captain Davies. "But this second Captain Davies was not the Captain Davies, my friend. "Another Captain Davies, a third one, came out of the inn and listened to my trouble. 'Senor, cannot you remember the Christian name of the Captain Davies you know?' "I couldn't, only 'Captain Davies of Llan- granog, wrecked in the Danube.' 'I was wrecked on a South Sea island and was wrecked on an iceberg in the North At- lantic. In this little village and on the farms for miles around are many Captain Davieses who have been wrecked all over the world in earth- quakes and volcanic eruptions they have been, in mutinies and riots and all manner of civil com- motions there is one Captain Davies who rammed a German submarine with the keel of his ship. This is the home of the Captain Davieses. This is the birthplace of the Welsh captains.' "Thus spoke Captain Davies the third, he who had come out of the inn, and he directed me to the home of a fourth Captain Davies, a mile and a half inland. "Definitely resolved to return to the inn unless the Captain Davies, my friend, lived there, I trudged wearily up the long, winding road which leads from Llangranog: the traveller on the Spanish roads hears the orchestra of the grass- hoppers from sunset till dawn I heard no such sound on this lonely road but on the roadway all along its length were multitudes of slugs, long, fat, black slugs, who had come out from the thick, damp grass. "At the home of Captain Davies a little boy opened the door to me. 'Does Captain Davies live here, the one who was shipwrecked in the Danube?' "But I knew that he did, because I recognise in the little boy the clear, straight eyes, the high forehead, and the large, genial head of Captain Davies. "Out came Captain Davies, Captain Davies, my friend, and in a minute I was inside the house and surrounded by his grandchildren. "The little boy was pulling at my hand. 'You are the Spanish captain shipwrecked near Grand- pa How funny it must have been to see the Mari Llewelyn amongst the trees Did a bird build a nest in the mast?' "A girl played 'The Blue Danube' on a piano. All the photographs in the house were taken off