There is little or no poetry about our blacksmith. He has "large and sinewy hands," like those of his illustrious representative on the other side of the Atlantic, the one whom Longfellow has immortalised, and baritones sing about. As a

rule our smith is a practical, hard-working man, thirsty at times -consider the heat and dust of his life-and though he may go chapelward or churchward, I have never known him much addicted to Sunday Schools, or to be affected with softened memories concerning "her mother's voice."

"No poetry about a smith or smithy!" exclaim some of my lady readers; "how absurd! Is there any picture more beautiful than that of the smithy in the village lane, seen in the softened haze of summer time, the faint blue smoke quietly stealing from the chimney of the thatched cottage; as one hears the measured beat and sees the 'sparks fly out at the open door.'

Yes, as a picture, and with associations of the poet, it is poetical, but so, at a distance, is that other thatched cottage, with woodbine and roses creeping to the roof, and its pretty garden, and-its fever pond near, and its noisome ditch in the rear, without one solitary provision for health. "Those are the places," said a medical friend of mine, pointing to a number of cosy thatched cottages on the hill-side, "pictures everyone of them to look at, where we always get fever of one sort or another."

But if the smith has no poetry in his nature he has the halo of antiquity about his calling. What about Tubal Cain, our first ironmaster? For the smith was the progenitor of the ironmaster, and the history of the iron trade dates from his smithy. Confining my description to Wales, the smith has a great antiquity. In the early days of our history he was regarded as one of the thirty-five servants of the Royal Court (vide Hywel Dda's laws.) The first rank was composed of twenty-four members, and the second of eleven. Our smith formed one of the eleven. One of his duties was to provide the chief of the household with four new horse shoes every year, with the required nails to put them on; and in making necessary articles for the court, from the spear head to the woodman's axe, he was kept tolerably well employed. His position in the dininghall was at the end of the bench but before the priest, showing that the Welsh of early days had more of the practical than the devotional in their composition, and that they esteemed him more who could make a spear than the other who could say a Pater.

The saddest thing that ever befel our smith was in the neighbourhood of Builth. Tradition says that the fugitive Prince Llewelyn, last of his race, sought refuge in a smithy, and that the smith changed his horse's shoes, putting them on backwards. This would have deceived the enemy and enabled the Prince to escape pursuit. But, alas! for the good fame of the craft. Our blacksmith told the enemy what he had done, and thus betrayed Llewelyn. The race have, however, lived this story down, and meet with him where you will, your smith is as bluff and hearty as our excellent artist has pictured him.

Iron is a good tonic and strengthener of the system, and I have thought that the sparks flying around, and enveloping him until he breathes iron, give, morally as well as physically, a tone to the system.

I have seen him a combination of smith and wheelwright in many out of the world spots of Wales. In archæological excursions, on carriage days, in the wilds of Cardigan, Carmarthen, and Pembrokeshire, he was met with perched by the corner of a rugged road, just where a carriage spring was likely to break, or a nut or a bolt to give way, and his skill in repairing damages always won our praise. One near Lampeter, if I recollect aright, flourished under an old umbrageous tree, and called forth from one of the members the following fearful parody:

Under a spreading old beech tree

The village wheelwright stands.

And judging from the numbers of barrows, gigs, carts, and the like around him in all conditions, with plenty of work upon his hands.

or

A rare place for gossip is the smithy in autumnal or wintry nights. True to his practical nature, our smith makes the gossip, no matter whether village tailor shoemaker, to work the bellows for him, and the din of hammer on anvil links the conversation, which is always breezy or bellowsy, or savours of the hard ring of iron, and has none of that minor key music about it which is so trying to the singer of Longfellow's blacksmith to produce. I am afraid the race is getting more horny-handed since its isolation from other professions and callings. I remember some of the men composing it practising as blood-letters, when phlebotomy was a belief. I have known them learned in "yarbs;" have known them experienced dentists, and I have heard of some who were gifted with rare skill in extracting needles from fingers; now it is the smithy, and "nothing more."

You may meet with him in all lands. Every nation has its smith, and in the ages that have flown since Tubal toiled, many a descendant of the race has gone forth from the shadow of the smithy and become linked with all professions and pursuits, shining in art and commerce, adding lustre to British fame on land and sea, and figuring with dignity in England's councils. Then in literature, how conspicuous! Thanks to Smith-one of the ablest statesmen we have-literature has literally run with the rail, and who does not remember Horace Smith, or who will ever forget that Oliver whose ancestor worked in a gold smithy? Better than gold, more priceless far than jewels, are his Deserted Village and the Vicar of Wakefield. Read his epitaph in Westminster Abbey by Dr. Johnson, and it will haunt you with its music. AP ADDA.

A A

SCENE FROM A WELSHMAN'S LIFE IN

PONDOLAND.

"I say, old fellow, are you going back into Pondoland to-day? If so, I will go too, and take my horses, if you will put me up at your shanty for a day or two. I've just brought a troop of nags from Pietermaritzburg, and it is making a deal with the Kaffirs in your outlandish country that I am after. But, faith! they'll have to give me three head of cattle for every mother's son of the crocks! P. O'D. is not the boy to risk his money and safety without recompense."

So spoke my quondam friend O'Donnell, a true type of the speculative Irishman, as I was standing at the door of a store in Natal, close to the border of Pondoland.

"Yes, I am going to start in about an hour's time," I answered, "but I tell you beforehand that everything is done in the rough-and-ready style in Pondoland. I can give you a shakedown with some blankets on the floor of my hut, and as for your food, you will have to ring the changes between boiled chicken for breakfast and chicken boiled for dinner. But you will soon tumble to that kind of fare, I expect. The sauce of a keen appetite makes even a good old Kaffir cock palatable. Come and have a tot, and after I have done a little business in the matter of hides with B. we will saddle up."

It was a beautiful afternoon as we forded, on horseback, the deep, and rather rapid, Untumvuna River, which separates Natal from Pondoland. Above us the transparent blue sky, without a cloud; before us an apparently boundless extent of green country, stretches of level sward interspersed here and there with picturesque groups of Kaffir huts, sprinkled over the landscape like so many bee-hives. These Kaffir kraals are, as a rule, situated close to a kloof, or valley, which, in its wild beauty, has often brought to my mind many a "cwm" in the "hen wlad fy nhadau."

We did not talk much, but settled ourselves in our saddles to get over the twenty-five miles which separated us from my store, and the silence was only broken by O'Donnell's Hottentot servant, who was driving the troop of horses in front of us,

uttering every now and then a shrill cry, more like a monkey than a man, to urge on some straggler. Thus we covered

mile after mile.

We were coming round a bend in the track when O'Donnell suddenly pulled up, and silently pointed to an object about a hundred and fifty yards distant, which I at once saw was a paaw," or bustard, one of the most valued species of winged game in the country, but at the same time a most wary customer to approach.

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"Just hold my horse for me a moment, and, by jabers, I'll have a shot at the baste," whispers O'Donnell.

"I'll bet you two to one you don't floor him with your revolver," was my answer, as I took his rein.

Cautiously he creeps under cover of some boulders till he judges himself near enough to fire at (as he thought) the still unconscious bustard. But simultaneously with the appearance of O'Donnell's head above the rocks, the paaw spread his wide wings, and left my friend only the consolation of firing after him. The "How about the two to one ?" from me, as he came to take his horse, did not improve the Hibernian temper, but a hearty pull at the whisky flask soon brought a smile over his face, and ended the affair satisfactorily.

In the meantime the Hottentot, with the troop of horses, had got considerably ahead, and we accordingly pushed on to overtake him. Every now and then, as we galloped along, a flock of parrots would spring up from some mealie garden, and almost deafen us by their shrill cries; or, as we passed a kloof, we would catch a glimpse of some monkeys as they jumped with a crash from bush to bush at our approach. At last a turn of the track brought us within sight of Umpees (my store). In another five minutes we were galloping up, amidst a chorus of yelping and barking from about twenty curs of all kinds. I always kept a lot of dogs as night guards, and many a good service has been done me by my faithful "Andas."

Injati ("The Buffalo"), my trusty head nigger, instantly appeared on the scene, from one of the small huts which stood in place of a kitchen, and took the horses. And now I must introduce my readers to my home in the wilds of Pondoland.

Five huts, some round, some oval, stand in a circle, with the kraal or cattle enclosure opposite the largest, or store hut. These are made of pliable twigs, intertwined and bound at different points with strips of raw hide. Perpendicular poles, driven into the ground, support the roof, which is also made of twigs, and is thatched with dry grass. The whole is plastered inside and out with a thick coating of "malongue" and mud. Holes cut in the walls serve as windows, and a movable shield of wickerwork rests against the low opening called door.

The appliances and general comfort of my hut being but