This destination of the Holyhead Road, its sponsor and reason for existence, makes a very sorry ending to these two hundred and sixty miles of picturesque and historic scenery. It is a squalid little town, set down, to all appearance, at the edge of the known world, and only existing on the traffic of its harbour. Described by Swift so long ago as 1727 as “a scurvy, unprovided, comfortless place,” and in Ogilby’s Roads, of 1749, as “consisting chiefly of houses for the entertainment of such persons as are bound for Ireland, or just arrived thence,” it has not advanced far in all the years that have passed since those unflattering descriptions were penned.

Swift, to be sure, came to Holyhead in a fury. When, however, was he not possessed of that “saeva indignatio” referred to even in his epitaph? He had come by Penmynydd, where he had hoped to see Owain Tudor’s tomb, but missed the place by the knavery of the guide, who wanted to be moving on. Wearied with riding, he then rested two hours at Llangefni. “Then I went on, very weary, but in a few miles more Wat’s horse lost his two fore-shoes, so the horse had to limp after us. The Guide was less concerned than I. In a few miles more my horse lost a fore-shoe, and could not go on the rocky ways. I walked about two miles to spare him. It was Sunday, and no smith to be got. At last there was a smith in the way; we left the Guide to shoe the horses, and walked to a Hedge Inn three miles from Holyhead. There I stayed an hour with no ale to be drunk. A boat offered, and I went by sea, and sailed in it to Holyhead. The Guide came about the same time. I dined with an old innkeeper, Mrs. Welsh, about three, on a loyn of mutton, very good, but the worst ale in the world, and no wines, for the day before I came here a vast number went to Ireland, after having drunk out all the wine. There was stale beer, and I tryed a receit of Oyster shells, which I got powdered on purpose, but it was good for nothing. I walked on the rocks in the evening, and then went to bed, and dreamt that I had got twenty falls from my horse.”

Swift lay here for seven days waiting for the packet to sail. On the 28th of September it set forth, but was obliged by stress of weather to return, and it does not appear how much longer he was detained. In these empty days of waiting he wrote the verses:—

The room smoked, but it was too cold to be without a fire. “There is,” he writes, “or should be, a Proverb here:”

Thus his notes run on: “Dined like a king all alone for seven days. Whoever would wish to live long should live here, for a day is longer than a week, and, if the weather be foul, as long as a fortnight. Pray pity poor Wat, for he is called Dunce, Puppy, and Liar five hundred times an hour; and yet he means not ill, for he means nothing.” Wat he ordered to wipe his wet gown and cassock, and he did so with a meal-bag, with the result that it was caked thickly with a kind of meal-plaster. When at last the Dean did leave Holyhead, he carried with him memories not likely to be speedily effaced.

Wesley had something like these experiences in 1748, when he was storm-bound for eleven days. He spent the time mainly in preaching, but for all practical purposes might just as well have stayed within doors, for he laments that his congregations did not understand English. It is difficult to decide whose was the greater foolishness—that of the preacher who preached in a strange tongue, or that of those who listened to words they could not comprehend. Two years later he was at Holyhead, detained for three days, and then, obliged by storms to return for another eight, he “expounded the story of Dives and Lazarus to a room full of men daubed with gold and silver.” They, at any rate, seemed to understand, for they “took it in ill part, and went away railing and blaspheming.” These “sons of Belial,” as he calls them, returned, and would have seriously injured him, but that he was locked in the room. They were at last dispersed by a courageous maidservant, who threw a bucket of water over them.

No longer is it necessary for travellers to wait shivering for days before winds and weather permit of the Channel being crossed. They arrive nowadays for the most part at dark and ungodly hours, at railway terminus or harbour, and are at once whisked away to Dublin or to London. Some may make acquaintance with the Railway Hotel, but, beyond that, Holyhead merely stands for a name and an hour in the time-tables. It was different before the steam packets began from July 1st, 1819, to make the sixty-four miles passage in 7½ hours. To wait a week at Holyhead before the crossing could be made was no unusual experience in the old sailing days, when a good average passage took fifteen hours, and a very bad one more than double the time. Even the journey by steamer has been cut down to half its duration, and now takes only from 3½ to 4 hours, so that the passengers who halt at Holyhead are few and far between, and the town lives only in an indirect way on the traffic between the kingdoms. It remains no more than a fringe of hilly, gaunt, and aimless streets gathered round the harbour and railway station, with the old church of St. Cybi in their midst, its central tower surmounted by what has been described as “a low, flat spire.” The traveller will doubtless be as eager to see this curiosity of a flat spire as he would to discover a round square, a square angle, or anything else equally unknown to Euclid.